Fair points, perhaps I was a little rash. The reason I feel urked by the idea is that it seems to me that it would lead to a greater lock-in of technologies and products that a business can use. More investment would need to be made in order to support a technology or product and thus would make it harder to switch to something else if requirements changed. I can see the use of having certifications for hiring as well as credibility to clients, but I feel that there's probably a fair amount of danger in this too.

As for the books, that was an off-hand comment, half to illustrate that I am, in fact, not experienced with the world of Microsoft Certifications, and so whatever I say should be taken as comment from a layman :)