From newsgroup to top-user group, websites and message boards worldwide, MVP status is awarded to the most active online community ‘gurus’ for their technical expertise, voluntary willingness to share their experience and commitment to helping others realise their potential within Microsoft technical communities.

This year, the MVP Programme has doubled in size, with nearly 1,300 MVPs from more than 55 countries representing more than 70 Microsoft technologies. The growth of the programme according to Lori Moore, corporate vice president of product support services and executive sponsor of the MVP Programme, Microsoft Corp, is a testament to Microsoft’s worldwide customer connection.

“Although the programme has always been globally focused, the tremendous increase in efforts and support for technical communities outside of the US, especially in countries like India, Japan, China, Germany, France and Latin America, reflects the increasing needs of some of our best customers,” she says.

Today, online technical communities devoted to one or Microsoft products are used by millions of customers worldwide. Each year, Microsoft looks to these communities — message boards, websites, newsgroups, and other technical peer to peer communities — for the most outstanding, active participants providing credible and noteworthy contributions to a technical community, including their valuable inputs on how Microsoft’s products could be improved.

Much of this feedback comes during the annual summit Microsoft holds each year on its Redmond campus for the MVPs and top Microsoft executives slated for early next year. By far, Microsoft’s largest online community is the Microsoft public newsgroups with over 11-per cent growth in membership and nearly 1.5 million active community members annually participating at www.microsoft.com or There are thousands of freely available newsgroups covering a wide variety of Microsoft products and technologies, including more than 250 devoted to developer topics.

Not only are Microsoft MVP’s active experts on one or more Microsoft products from Office to Visual Studio .NET, they also represent a diverse group of backgrounds and professions from artists to technical trainer and from author to student, police officer, homemaker, firemen, doctor and more. They range in age from 18 to 80 while spanning the globe from India to Brazil to China.

Not only are they online and active but many host websites author best-selling books and train others; while always finding the time to voluntarily give something back to the community. It is this amazing ‘spirit of community’ and willingness to share combined with technical expertise and a sense of professionalism that truly reflects the Microsoft MVP Award.

“MVPs make a significant contribution to our customer and overall community satisfaction, and we sincerely appreciate their efforts,” says Dilip Mistry, director, .NET and Developer Evangelism, Microsoft Corporation India Pvt Ltd. Microsoft would like to congratulate and thank the following Indian Microsoft MVPs for 2003:

Mumbai:

• Akila Manian, lead trainer, Synergetics
• Bipin Joshi, software developer, Mastek Ltd
• Kunal Cheda, Syntel India Ltd
• Manish Mehta, leader, .NET initiative of the ATG (advanced technology group), Syntel India Ltd
• Mark D’Souza, Sagacious Infotech
• Narayana Rao Surapaneni, senior software engineer, Patni Computer Systems Ltd
• Nauzad Kapadia, freelancer, Quartz Systems
• Saurabh Nandu, founder, www.MasterCSharp.com, and technical evangelist, YesSoftware Inc
• Shyam Pillai
• Sudhakar Sadasivuni, NetDecisions
• Sushila Bowalekar, Patni Computer Systems Ltd

Chennai:

• Aravind Corera, independent software developer
• Anand M, technical manager, Polaris Software Lab
• Arun Prakash G, systems engineer, Polaris Software Lab Ltd
• M Rajesh, senior developer, ICICI Infotech Services Ltd
• Rajender Mahato, iNautix Technologies India Pvt Ltd
• Sandra Gopikrishna, technical specialist, Infosys Technologies Ltd
• Vinod Kumar, software engineer, Emerald Software Pvt Ltd

Bangalore:

• Benny Mathew, Thomson Financial Research
• Kashinath, Texas Networks
• Shivani Maheshwari, Satyam Computer Services
• Shivashanmugam M, technical consultant, Trigent Software

Hyderabad:

• Gurneet Singh, programmer analyst, Infosys
• Pratyusa Manadhata, E Shaw India Software Ltd

New Delhi:

• Suresh Behera, Senior Team Leader, Cyberica Net Technologies

Others:

• Ajay Varghese, senior software engineer (technical lead), Jarvis Infotech
• Anand Narayanaswamy, freelance technical writer / developer, Thiruvananthapuram
• DV Ravikanth, software developer, Essemm Information Systems Ltd, Visakhapatnam
• Geetesh Bajaj, Secunderabad
• Kumar Gaurav Khanna, software developer, Chandigarh
• Nishant S
• R Balaji
• Sreejumon KP, US Technology Resources, Thiruvananthapuram

  also see : news://msnews.microsoft.com.