>Do you really believe that developers as a group can come to a consensus on the ERs? I doubt it very seriously, we all have vastly different areas of where we each want to see product improvement focused. I'm pretty sure that MS keeps a tally of how many requests they get for particular features and they work on them according to internal priorities that none of us outside MS are privy to.
>
I, for one, do. David, of 1000 developers, I'll bet there is at least one thing that 25% can agree on. That's an excellent start. Certainly all of us can agree that the bugs going back to FP2.x should be fixed soonest.

Even having the dialog would be helpful. If developer A wants X but B shows A that X can be done using the existing Y, then the community's knowledge has advanced and X can now turn to the second item on his/her wish list.

>I don't think having a "group" wishlist, of the couple of hundred UT developers here, with everyone casting their votes for which of them they want to see really carries much more weight than those same wishes sent directly to Microsoft by each developer.
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10,000 voices speaking separately has _never_ had the weight of 10,000 voices speaking together -- just ask the labor unions.

>>If they choose not to respond, then possibly (in light of Gates/Ballmer alleged statements) we could escalate within MS, and if they do respond, then we are well on the way to getting what we need and want.
>>
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>I don't know of too many companies that broadly forecast what will be in the next release of any product. Market competition being just one factor in such announcements.
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OK, but I guarantee that almost all _successful_ non-monopolistic companies, take GM for instance, spend a lot of time finding out what customer's actually want. $ millions for research is spent ever year on just that issue.

Has M$ asked you what you want lately? You are a significant figure in this community. So if someone is going to be asked, it would be someone like you. Have you been asked?

>Send your ERs to foxwish@microsoft.com, even if you don't get feedback about what you send, they do take the wishes seriously.

How do you know that if no one gets feedback? They should and very well may, but how do we know. If M$ has a directory of customer communications, they should look to see who is actually cashing his/her paycheck -- because that individual has expired. RIP

regards,

Jim