>Yes, ladies and gentlemen, you read that right - if you don't get lucky and win a voucher, you have to pay to take these exams ($125 each). MS has succeeded in productizing (official MS-speak) the complexity of their licensing.

Joel Spolsky had an article on pricing, and briefly explained the reasoning behind this diverse pricing. In short, with one price, those who'd pay less won't buy it, and those who'd be willing to pay more get it cheaper. So there's (supposedly) money lost in both cases - in first, no sale, in second, cheaper sale than the customer (or, in M$ case, a consumer) would want to spend.

So they started inventing schemes... perfecting them to the point where the scheme itself is preventing the sale. Literally. I'm definitely NOT buying anything that comes with more than, say, 80 words of small print. I'm not taking a credit card. I have only a throwaway cell phone. And in all these years on this continent I had only one burger at the Mc (and that was within the first six hours after landing), because the time to read and understand their system is just not worth the trouble, specially considering what you get in the end.

So just as I'm not touching anything in a grocery that doesn't have the price clearly stated, I'm not getting into anything that sounds too complicated. Because if it is, apply the constitutional preamble here: caveat emptor, and assume that the purpose of the complication is fleecing. And as long as there are sheep, there will be sweaters.