Actually I have 20. My main motivation has been to try to survive the bad economy. The company I work for pays for tests & courses, but I pay for books. I've been working on these since Fall 2002, taking roughly one
test each month. (I passed Security+ a couple days ago).
I can't say how much the certifications help, since I haven't looked for a job recently. I've been with my current company for 7 years, with a title of Senior Programmer / Analyst.
John E.<br /> <br />SCJP (1.4, 5.0), SCJD, SCWCD (1.3, 1.4), SCBCD, SCDJWS, SCSA (Solaris 9), SCNA, SCSecA, MCP, MCAD, MCSD.NET, MCDBA, IBM 815, IBM XML, ICSD (IBM 288), XML Master (Basic), OCA (9i PL/SQL dev, 10g DBA), OCP (10g DBA), OMG UML Fundamental & Intermediate, MySQL 4 Core & Professional, MySQL 5 Developer & DBA, A+, Network+, Security+