News for the Exchange Professional (1): MS cancelling the Microsoft Certified Master Program

Following the communities in the Web we found surprising news from Microsoft. In a letter to the achievers of the Microsoft Certified Master Program, Microsoft announced the decision to cancel (“pause”) the Master certification track while leaving the title valid for now. Find more Information on Devin Ganger’s Blog. 
The arguments of Microsoft to stop the program include costs of the track, poor contribution of the MCP community and the obvious existence of “non-technical” barriers for many candidates like the extensive costs and the English-only approach.
Microsoft’s Tim Sneath:
“We want it to be an elite community, certainly. But some of the non-technical barriers to entry run the risk of making it elitist for non-technical reasons. Having a program that costs candidates nearly $20,000 creates a non-technical barrier to entry. Having a program that is English-only and only offered in the USA creates a non-technical barrier to entry. Across all products, the Masters program certifies just a couple of hundred people each year, and yet the costs of running this program make it impossible to scale out any further.”
Find the full text here.