She's also the youngest Microsoft Certified Professional in the world--and she received the certification when she was only nine.

FORBES

The Alliance Support for High Availability segment engages Microsoft Certified Support Center high-availability providers to offer service-level commitments based on system availability.

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The company wants your computers to be running Windows, your users to be working in Office, your data to be stored in their version of SQL and your applications to be written by Microsoft certified developers.

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While there is no doubt certifications open the door and improve your chances of getting an interview, official recognitions are not the silver bullet, says Wayne Botha, a project manager with two designations: Microsoft Certified Systems Engineer (MCSE) and Project Management Professional (PMP).

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At the moment, 8, 000 applications are Windows 2000-compatible, but only about 30 are certified, said Microsoft's Valentine.

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As a (ahem) Certified Advisor of Microsoft CRM since 2005 I can attest that the community around this product has grown a ton over the past few years.

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As a result of close work with hardware partners, more than 1, 000 certified PCs and tablets, including Microsoft Surface, will be available for the launch of Windows 8 - making it the best lineup of PCs ever across the Windows 8 and Windows RT ecosystem.

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Microsoft is helping more than 10, 000 veterans get IT certified over the next two years.

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