>Pardon the blunt question, but if there is an MS office in Montreal, who benefits? MS or local user groups? If the groups, then "saving the MS office" is really just enlightened self-interest.

First of all, the office in here is quite small. Only a few persons work in there. It's mainly to have a presence in the big city. I don't know their role exactly but I'd say, from what I've seen for a few years, to offer some logistic support, exposure at events, etc.

MS allows user group to benefit of their facilities to hold meetings. MS also donated some door prizes and offer some help in regards to that for a few years. We don't have anything to say about that. Well done again! But, my main point, where I wanted to collect information as to know if sponorship like that is expressed in other cities, is mostly what I am interested right now in.

I don't recall having heard of such leadership and sponsorship in 1993 when the Montreal Visual FoxPro User Group was formed. And, until today, it's the group who is paying for bringing top speakers in town. In most cases, they'll try to join effort with other groups such as having the ability to have the speaker speaks at one group one night and the other the other night. So, it's more interesting for a speaker to come in town. He can do two for one and that's good for everyone.

But, on that of that, despite the fact that this is only applied to .NET from MS, when we are starting to get the feeling that the focus is geared toward to eliminate actual user groups, it's quite something that need consideration I would say. There might have been some changes of personal or whatever, but, at least, some effort of coordination and transfer of knowledge should have been put in place in order to make sure the actual investment is preserved.