Microsoft is a dominant software company. Their products are available in virtually every segment of the Information Technology industry. It is critically important for every IT professional to attain the skills necessary to fully understand and administer Microsoft products. If you are looking for an IT job you need to have the various Microsoft skills on your resume.

If you don’t want to take my word for it look at these statistics.

According to research firm Gartner, the Windows share of global server shipments gained a percentage point to 66.8 per cent in 2007 from a year earlier.

Open-source Linux’s share fell by a percentage point to 23.2 per cent last year and Unix dropped to 6.8 per cent in 2007 from 8.1 per cent in 2006.

With Microsoft Exchange 2007 and Windows Server 2008 exploding into the market place look for these percentages to increase. Microsoft has retooled IIS for Windows 2008 and their commitment to security will hopefully continue improving consumer confidence with using Microsoft servers as a their web platform. With the saturation of Windows 2000 and 2003 Server in the IT market the demand for related expertise and certification will continue for a long time.

This is one of the reasons why Microsoft Certifications are so popular. I passed my first NT certification exam almost ten years ago and have passed over a dozen Microsoft Certification exams since. There are a lot of “paper tigers” out there, with all sorts of letters next to their name and no real skills or experience. Don’t fall for that trap. Get the skills you need to not only get a job, but also thrive once you get there.

I love Linux as much as anyone and strongly feel having an understanding of all major Operating Systems and technologies is incredible important. Like anything, you have to start somewhere. I would start by learning PC and network fundamentals. I would follow this up with Microsoft specific skills and then move on to Linux.

If you can become proficient with Cisco, Microsoft and Redhat products you are in great shape. It doesn’t matter if you work with these products daily or on a case-by-case basis, having the appropriate skills and certifications are incredibly important.