For all levels of certification I would keep the certificate, badge and Microsoft Certified Professional Magazine free subscription, as these are all very handy. I'm also very fond of TechNet, and like many of you, I miss the days when a TechNet subscription was part of the benefits. Therefore, in my ideal world I would offer:

• for MCPs, a one-off trial copy of TechNet.
• for MCSEs, a continuing free subscription to TechNet for as long as you hold your MCSE certification.
• For MCEE (my new premium certification), a continuing free subscription to TechNet Pro for as long as you hold your MCEE certification.

Now I know vendors claim that they don't make any money from their certification programs, and I can understand the accounting process that gives these results. However, the intangible benefits of having 400,000+ certified professionals that know and understand your products must be a great boon for Microsoft. And let's face it, CDs don't cost much to make and distribute, so this isn't the huge cost it would seem -- especially because very soon they will be able to distribute these as DVDs and drastically cut down the number of CDs to be cut and distributed.

As I have just come to realize myself, Microsoft won't be issuing certificates as you upgrade your MCSE for the new versions. This seems a real letdown that after successfully upgraded your certification you don't actually get anything. Therefore, in my ideal world, it would be a nice gesture to at least get a congratulatory letter and certificate when you upgrade your MCSE to the next product version.

My last plan would be to offer Microsoft Press books at a discount to certified people. The intention here to is to keep people continually updating their skills above and beyond that needed for their original certification. So for MCPs, this might be 20 percent off, 25 percent for MCSEs and 30 percent for MCEEs. I would suspect other book publishers would want to be a part of this as well, and it would be a win-win-win situation for all if they did. The publishers get to promote their books directly to a target audience, the certified people get access to cheaper books, and Microsoft gets to offer discounted books as part of their program at no cost to themselves.

I know that we don't do our certifications just for the benefits alone, but it is nice to get some useful benefits that we can continue to use in our career. What would you like to see as part of the benefits package? Post your thoughts at the end of this article.

Some of you made the comment to my last column that no matter what you add to a vendor certification, it is still just a vendor certification -- no more, no less. This is no doubt true. Unfortunately, at the moment, there is an increasing suspicion out there that many of the newer NT 4.0 MCPs and MCSEs have little hands-on experience and may have rote learned their exam answers from braindump sites. I'm sure a good 95 percent of people work hard to earn their certifications the right way; it's the other five percent who spoil it for everyone, and it's this five percent I wanted to weed out in the redesigned program I proposed last month.

We all work in a relatively young profession that hasn't had the time yet to mature. Hence vendor certification has become a de facto way to verify minimum skill levels on a variety of tools and products. However, it won't always be like this. I would like to think as our industry matures we will have professional bodies develop that dictate the body of knowledge necessary to be a competent professional in a given field. In this case, there would be strict criteria needed for entry into the profession, plus some ongoing minimum requirements to keep skills current.

The CompTIA exams (A+, Network+, etc.) may be a start here, but at the moment these cover very specific skill areas rather than everyone in IT. I am also aware of the Certified Computer Professional (CCP) program, but it seems that this hasn't reached critical mass as yet.

In 1999, the Australian Computing Society (ACS) was accepted as a member of the Australian Council of Professions, giving it the same status as the professional bodies for accountants, engineers and lawyers. I believe at the time of announcement this was a world first. (I should point out that acceptance to this body took nearly a decade to achieve since the ACS had to restructure much of the way they went about things.) Up until this, I had been skeptical about joining the ACS here in Australia since it seemed to be of little value. However, I do believe that membership is going to become more and more useful in my future life in IT (I'd like to think I have a good 30 years of work left in me yet!). So I'm off to join up. I don't have a computing degree -- my undergraduate degree was in civil engineering -- but I can join now as an associate member because they recognize CNE and MCSE certifications. I will then apply for full membership pending a successful application to get recognition of prior learning from my 13 years of IT experience. This isn't the same as the wafflely "life experience" justification that degree mills use to justify granting of degrees with no tuition involved -- there are strict criteria listed that my application will be measured against.

What do you think about a professional body like this for IT professionals in your country? Would you join one? What would you want from one? Post your take on this issue below, or e-mail me directly through the CertCities.com staff at editor@certcities.com.