Microsoft Global MVP Summit 2008

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Microsoft Global MVP Summit 2008.

"All work and no fun makes an MVP a dull guy!"

Well, this was proved wrong at this years MVP Summit's Party at the Experience Music / Science Fiction Museum, where MVP's got to showcase their other talents. Several MVP's from various countries put up an excellent performance, with an enthusiastic group of MVP's from India, later joined in by others, rocking the dance floor. It was fun all the way here!

The Microsoft Global MVP Summit 2008 was held in Seattle & Redmond, 14-17 April. Over 2000 MVP's & RD's attended the Summit. The Summit consisted of four days of intense technical lectures & breakout sessions covering various Microsoft Technologies. This year’s Summit also marked a new leadership for the MVP program, as Toby Richards took on the role of General Manager of Community Support Services for Microsoft.

The Summit closed with the keynote address of Microsoft Chief Executive Steve Ballmer. In his frank down-to-earth way he called Vista a "Work in progress" ! He admitted that the company had to learn lessons from its release. "Vista is bigger than XP, and it's gonna stay bigger than XP. We have to make sure it doesn't get bigger still. Vista is a very important piece of work, and I think we did a lot of things right, and I think we have a lot of things we need to learn from". He also accepted that it had taken too long to launch Vista and the 5 year gap had caused its own set of problems.

Another discussion which the audience enjoyed was when Balmer asked, How many used Live as the default search engine. Hardly any hands went up ! Next he asked how many used Yahoo as the default search engine; Again one could just about see a few hands up in the air ! And finally he asked the audience: How many used Google as the default search engine? Whoa ! You could see almost every hand up it the air !

This made Ballmer throw up his hands in frustration : "Wow! We offered 31 bucks a share."

"We are a clear No 3 in Search... a clear No 3 ", he repeated himself, jokingly, which had the audience in splits. And then he asked the audience one thing ... some time this year Microsoft was planning some more changes to Live Search. After that, he exhorted the audience to try it for one week and see the difference. "Can I get the people, particularly the people who raised their hands to the last question to try it then for one week ? One week is all I ask. There are no compulsions; just try it out for one week" ! All hands went up.

Ballmer was all game ! He wore a T-Shirt presented by the Canadian group, on stage. Not one to stop there, he also wore a Simpsons Tie on top of it, presented to him by an American MVP.

And when an MVP from India asked him 'one last question': You are the CEO of Microsoft Corporation, billions of dollars in revenue, more than 80,000 team members working in more than 200 countries worldwide. Do you get sound sleep? Ballmer's reply was characteristic : Seriously, I sleep extremely well, and long. I need seven to eight hours a night. I get seven to eight hours a night.

Incidentally, those of you who'd like to read the exact and full report of remarks by Steve Ballmer, can do so at Microsoft.

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