According to a MCP Magazine post (in its entirety):

According to a blog post from Trika Harms zum Spreckel, who works on the Microsoft Learning Group marketing communications team, the group is developing a formalized plan for retiring new generation certifications under what's being called a "lifecycle policy."

Based on information in the post, the impact is minimal on those holding any of the Microsoft Certification Technology Specialist certificates. As has been the case with older MCP exams, certifications get retired about a year after a technology's lifecycle support comes to an end.

However, new with the policy is that those holding the higher-level, premium Microsoft Certified IT Professional or Microsoft Certified Professional Developer titles will have to take a "refresh exam" every three years, in order to maintain MCITP or MCPD status. Details on the blog post appear sketchy, but what's known is that those who don't refresh their exams will no longer be able to use the premium title logos, and the information for those certifications will be removed from transcripts until the refresh requirements are met. Also, the policy will be put into effect in about two years.

Holders of the older MCP titles, such as the MCDST, MCSA, MCSE, MCSD and MCDBA, will continue to retain those titles. (To read the older retirement policy, click here; to find out when mainstream support for specific Microsoft technologies expires, click here)

The certification lifecycle policy is still in early development; we'll update this news item as we obtain more information from Microsoft Learning.

Not good, Microsoft. We've gone through this before. People's skills don't retire. Once you achieve a certification in a particular product, you've proven you know that product.

What're your opinions about certification? Do you think they should reinstate the retirement policy? Let us know in the comments.

See the MCP Magazine article here:
http://mcpmag.com/news/article.asp?EditorialsID=1326

And get to the original blog post here:
http://blogs.msdn.com/trika/archive/2007/07/03/lifecycle-of-new-generation-certifications.aspx