Companies are finally understanding the necessity of security.
i think its great this is finally starting to come back and bite most companies. hiring someone who only knows what a network is by a microsoft diagram is just begging to get your ass handed to you. if a piece of equipment doesn't cost $500 in licencing, then how can it possible be good?

i recently went through a mcse bootcamp to get my mcse. there were 11 of us in the class, 2 people had their mcse under nt. neither of them successfully obtained the newer cert, and both of them were confused by anything that wasn't made by ms (what is a router? cat5?) it was very sad, actually.