Microsoft Most Valuable Professional
According to Microsoft, Microsoft Most Valuable Professional (MVP) award is given to "exceptional, independent community leaders who share their passion, technical expertise, and real-world knowledge of Microsoft products with others." The awarded are people who "actively share their ... technical expertise with the different technology communities related directly or indirectly to Microsoft". An MVP is awarded for contributions over the previous year.
The MVP program grew out of the software developer community, as the initial MVPs were some of the most active on the online peer support communities such as Usenet and CompuServe. It has since grown to include other types of products, and other avenues of contribution. Steve Ballmer spoke to a group of Microsoft MVPs about Windows XP and Windows Vista.
A posting from Tamar Granor on the Universal Thread web site gives this account of the origin of the MVP program.
As the story goes, some of the Microsoft people jumped on Calvin's List as a way to identify high contributors, and thus was born the MVP program.
On October 22, 1999, a Microsoft executive sent out a message announcing the cancellation of the MVP program. This may have been in response to a recent suit against AOL by its newsgroup leaders, who felt that they deserved to be paid for the time they put in online. After an outpouring of online support, including many emails sent directly to Bill Gates and Steve Ballmer, Microsoft announced three days later that the cancellation had been rescinded.
With the introduction of a site dedicated to MVPs, it is now easier to locate an MVP from a specific country and from a specific area of expertise. The need to contact an MVP can be user specific. The most common purpose is for students enrolled in Microsoft Student Partnership (MSP) programs. The 2011 update to the program now allows MSP students to contact MVPs directly for training purposes. This is subject to the availability and acceptance of the MVP whom the MSP student contacts. Among other purposes, the MVP might be contacted to get assistance with local and assembled devices running Microsoft products. Anyone can use the Advanced Search on the Microsoft MVP website to locate MVP awardees by location and/or by expertise.
Microsoft Community (also called Microsoft Answers) is an extension of the Microsoft website that engages in connecting users with experts of different types – including Microsoft MVPs. Users can send a personal message or contact an MVP on a forum as per the availability of the MVP. The concept of Microsoft Community is to provide unofficial support to its users and is something like Windows Live QnA. The forum site deals with almost all products and hence users can expect MVPs from almost all areas of expertise there.
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