To put in my two cents to a few of the threads in this single
thread...
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Sun does not release their certification numbers. - I do like, for instance, that you can tell how many of a given Microsoft cert have been issued, but I don't know that the information is really meaningful, save for giving some concept of how widely adopted an exam is. I was told, when I took the original SCEA back in 2005, that Prometric's informal numbers show that SCEA Part I is about 1% of the Sun exams given. I'd expect that SCEA5 has been fairly popular in the last year since it's introduction as folks move to get updated, and newcomers come off the
fence now that it's in the market.
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Microsoft doesn't yet offer an architect certification in software development. - Last time I looked, there are only two MCA exams, and they're more on the administration end of things. Plus... they're expensive and very time consuming - they make SCEA look like nothing.
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SCEA, like any cert, is worth what you can convince another person it's worth. - There's no way to establish a dollar figure for it (ie, get the SCEA and get a $10k raise on average), since everyone's going to value it differently. I know my immediate supervisor likes that I have it... but I honestly can't say that my employer (or even the HR department) realizes I have it.
