Another letter:

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> -----Original Message-----
> From: Eric Garza [mailto:eric.garza@usa.net]
> Sent: Friday, October 22, 1999 9:20 AM
> To: carlpr@able-consulting.com; support1@microsoft.com;
<snip>
> Subject: Re: The MVP Program Has Been Cancelled
>
>
> Carl and rest of MVPs,
>
> With all due respect and without knowing the reasons for the
> MVP program cancellation.
>
> I feel very disappointed by Microsoft, just like you.
>
> I'm not an MVP but I was applying for the program and as far as people
> tell me, I was doing a great job; I was working from 8:00AM to 11:00PM to
> bear with the time spent helping peers. I think most of you were doing
> something similar, sometimes failing your deadlines because of this, it
> feels good when people tell you "Thanks" and it feels good to have a title
> rewarding our hard job, it also feels good to know we help mankind in
> someway and not only going through life in a selfish manner
> getting what you
> need from others and not helping anyone on the path, it feels good to
> receive some goods from MS like the MSDN Subscription (3k value).
> And it feels good to know that Microsoft is cancelling the
> program since
> I will make more money now and have a better life, I will continue to post
> and help peers, but I won't give my life for it.
>
> It's not the money, it's the fact, the MVP program costs we
> much more in
> man-hours than Microsoft spends on it, having the program cancelled maybe
> means that Microsoft is going to offer something else, or they
> might want to
> spend much more having their support personnel answering the questions and
> this way trying to increase the quality of the service.
>
> If there's a company in the whole world that is making loads of money,
> you are that company, we are making you the richest guys over the earth, I
> really don't think that the program cancellation was due to economical
> problems.
>
> I am sure of one thing: Support costs need to be paid by the
> Manufacturer of the product to keep the customers happy and assure that
> customers get quality, responsive support.
>
> I am sure of one other thing: 50% or so of the people posting in the
> newsgroups need training badly, 30% need up-to-date training and more
> experience, 19% need some reading and searching before they post, 0.9% are
> well trained, did look for answers on help files, readme files, msdn, faqs
> and the web but they are reporting bugs, and the rest 0.1% are MVPs.
>
> I live in Mexico, Microsoft gives free support here, but know
> what? it's
> pretty lame, you make a long distance call if you aren't in Mexico City,
> wait on the queue from 5 to 10 minutes and get attended by a guy who knows
> nothing on programming, knows nothing on Microsoft products and
> only does a
> search on the KB and tells you the article number, well, that after the 10
> or 20 minutes you spend explaining the problem, tell me if you think using
> this kind of support is anything good, maybe they should cancel
> that program
> too, it's worth less in quality than the newsgroups are. On the past year
> and a half, I used to call that line around 30 times until I
> realized i was
> getting nowhere with their help, so I started looking for other
> choices and
> found the newsgroups, I spent some time reading old posts to see if my
> questions were answered, I posted one question there and in less than an
> hour, Carl Prothman had answered giving me very good hints about what was
> going on and how to solve it, I had upgraded to MDAC 2.1 and my
> whole system
> was unusable, and in three hours, the system was up again thanks to one of
> the MVPs helping me, I've been developing software in all kinds
> of languages
> and systems for over 12 years so I thought I could contribute to the
> newsgroups to make it work, at the time I knew nothing about what
> an MVP was
> until Carl told me I was doing great and would be good to apply for the
> program, which I accepted and see what happens now, one month later, I'm
> dumped before being in, isn't that great?
>
> If they plan to have MS support guys answering the posts, why not keeping
> the MVP program so that everyone is happy, that costs a few bucks to MS
> budget and gives people a reward for helping free.
>
> If the reason was economical, I think it was a mistake.
>
> Best Regards,
> Eric Garza
> Telinet, S.A. de C.V.
> Monterrey, Mexico
>
> cc. Carl Prothman MVP, President, Able Consulting.
> Joseph Lindstrom, Director of Business Development, Microsoft.
> Eric Kfir, Head of Development Team in IDF, Israel.
> Alberto Borbolla (Coatl) MVP, Tecnologia en Sistemas Mexico.
> Visual Basic Group, Mexico.
> Users who e-mailed me a "Thank you" message for answering a post:
> Roland, Exacting Craft Design
> Vitaly Gorbenko,
> David Gregg,
> Tim Jones,
> Owen Southwood,
> Larry Garcia,
> Shelley Locke,
> MHyrman,
> Rick Kolesar,
> Andy Ranoe,
> Mayank Pincha,
> Zvi Danovich,
> Vassilis Dourmas,
> Ilene LaBarbera,
> Morgan Leppink,
> SNS Computing Services,
> George Padvorac,
> Suneel K Piduguralla,
> Ralph Framke,
> Andrew Connell,
> Nezih Duzen.
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