Microsoft, what means the “Inactive Date” on my MCP Transcript?

You may have noticed your MCP Transcript mentions a future “Inactive Date” for some of your certifications.

I’ve found this good explanation on the BornToLearn blog and I think it’s worth sharing it:

http://borntolearn.mslearn.net/btl/b/weblog/archive/2011/03/23/transcript-and-certificate-changes-coming-soon.aspx#fbid=gnhaf2p-G0c

An excerpt of the blog article :

“Let’s take a moment to discuss the Inactive Date, because I’m sure that some of you are reading that phrase and thinking “that’s Microsoft-speak for decertification date.” It isn’t—in fact, even if all of your certifications go inactive, you’ll still have access to your MCP benefits, and your inactive certifications will still appear on your transcript. All that’s changing is that we’re signaling to you, your clients, and employers that these particular certifications have outlived their market relevance. Just to clarify what we mean by market relevance is that in most cases Microsoft isn’t even supporting the technology through mainstream support. In other cases, it may be that the way that the technology was used (many years ago or with cloud it could even be a few months ago) when it was first released has changed, because we all know that technology is ever evolving and changing at such a rapid pace. This means the certification may have validated how to use the technology in a different way and since then we have not re-validated the skills necessary to use the technology in the market.”