>They push clients in .Net, which force developers to go in that side. The attendants begin to visit only the meeting of MS UG. With MS paid speakers you already strike. In poor country like my own, you can guess alone what the result is.

See, that's exactly my point. Like I mentioned to someone on phone tonight, knowing that a specific user group, being sponsored by MS, is paying their speakers to present (no matter if local or foreign), is gearing the mind of developers to attend theirs instead. After all, if you have the choice of attending only one meeting in a month, where you are still uncertain about which tools you should use, the choice is quite easy for the developer to attend something being organized by MS as they have the name, the money and in most cases, the facilities. That's exactly what is happening in Montreal presently. It is bringing down the other user groups. I just don't see how you can compete against that.