A few months ago, I earned my Microsoft Certified Professional Developer (MCPD): Windows Developer certification. At that time, I had mentioned that there were not many people who have earned this particular certification. That comment was based on feedback from the Microsoft Certified Trainers (MCTs) that were helping run the testing center at Tech·Ed.
It turns out that last month, Microsoft released the official statistics of the number of Microsoft Certified Professionals (MCPs) around the world. The full statistics are available from the Microsoft Learning web site, and are current as of June 27, 2007. According to their stats, here is the breakdown for the 3 different MCPD certifications:
| MCPD: Enterprise Application Developer | 1,813 |
| MCPD: Web Developer | 1,144 |
| MCPD: Windows Developer | 560 |
That's right, 560 out of 2,127,227 total MCPs have earned the Windows Developer certification. That isn't the smallest number, however. That distinction goes to those 71 people who have an Microsoft Certified IT Professional (MCITP): Business Intelligence Developer. The largest is Microsoft Certified Systems Engineer (MCSE): Windows NT 4.0 at 395,737 people.