Microsoft plans to retire its Masters level certification exams by Oct. 1 this year, generating strong protests on blogs and community forums from IT professionals. The Redmond, Washington, software company, however, defended the move, with an executive stating that the Masters program reaches only "a tiny proportion of the overall community," and only a few hundred professionals had bagged the certification in the last few years. The certification was designed so that professionals could aspire to it as the peak of the Microsoft certified program.