[E McElroy[_2_]]

I'm greatly indebted to both you and Dan Freeman for the information.
Unfortunately, no one qualified for the free lobster lunch but my guess is
that real MVPs would rather hang out with the developers who eat at
McDonald's anyway.

I fear we're getting away from DCH's problem but the exchange has certainly
been elightening for me and I'm sure for others.

Thank you very much for the input.

Ed McElroy

"Jay Freedman" wrote:

In truth, MS Marketing has very little to do with the MVP program.
Microsoft's internal organization that deals directly with MVPs is
within the Product Support division. We've had several episodes in
which Marketing tried to get us to be evangelists, and we've resisted
vigorously. And I have, in fact, occasionally recommended OpenOffice,
usually when a poster indicates that cost is a major factor in their
selection.

While we do have some communication with the product developers, our
input on what to add, keep, or drop from the products is only one of a
great many sources -- more than I would care to have to satisfy.

When you hear that an existing feature is "low usage", the usual
source of that information is the Customer Experience Improvement
Program (http://www.microsoft.com/products/ce.../default.mspx).
Internally, MS calls this the Software Quality Metrics (SQM). It's a
phone-home monitor that tells MS what features you use. Unfortunately,
a lot of people (especially in corporations) turn it off, either to
minimize network traffic or because of security concerns. That makes
the overall data somewhat suspect, but the relative frequencies should
be fairly trustworthy.

I think Suzanne hinted at something else with the ring of truth. The
white-on-blue display was introduced in Word 6.0 as part of the
"WordPerfect-killer" push (that was also the version with an Easter
egg that showed the green WP monster being crushed by Word icons).
That battle is now so far in the past that MS probably doesn't see any
reason to keep its relicts. If Word 2007 manages to annoy or outrage
enough of its users, though, there may be a new battle on the horizon.

--
Regards,
Jay Freedman
Microsoft Word MVP FAQ: http://word.mvps.org
Email cannot be acknowledged; please post all follow-ups to the
newsgroup so all may benefit.

On Fri, 31 Aug 2007 14:00:02 -0700, E McElroy
wrote:

Well I certainly don't want to start a war since I don't run as fast as I
used to. I do suspect, however, that Microsoft's Marketing department almost
certainly regards MVPs as evangelists and may well run more interference for
you in the corporate bureaucracy than you might be aware of. Who, for
instance, initially came up with the MVP concept? Microsoft's programmers?
I'm skeptical but I'm willing to be persuaded. There's nothing wrong with
Marketing department support. After all, you're very valuable to Microsoft
and their Marketing people are surely aware of that. I wonder, for instance,
how often Office MVPs recommend OpenOffice to their clients; and you do a
great job providing support for the products in these forums - you're all
saving Mr. Gates the salaries of a lot of support people he would otherwise
have to hire.

I appreciate the information and the insight. In past versions, this feature
might have been easier to implement than it is in the current version because
of themes and other features. I noticed when I changed the system colors that
themes were still going their own way. Perhaps the additional amount of work
required was not justified although people with vision problems such as DCH
appear to have been short-changed in the process.

E McElroy

"Suzanne S. Barnhill" wrote:

We are unpaid, but you will start a war if you call us evangelists. And
marketing has nothing to do with it; we talk to the developers of the
product and have some input into the product design. I can tell you that the
reason this feature was dropped was "lack of use." I don't know that I heard
this directly viva voce from the product group, though; I would have thought
it was in Jensen Harris's Office UI blog, but a search doesn't turn it up
there.

I did find
http://technet2.microsoft.com/Office....mspx?mfr=true,
which says that AutoSummarize was "a low-use feature." About BBWT, it just
says, "This feature, included in previous versions of Word to emulate legacy
versions of WordPerfect, is no longer used." Maybe they just got tired of
accommodating WP migrants?

--
Suzanne S. Barnhill
Microsoft MVP (Word)
Words into Type
Fairhope, Alabama USA
Word MVP FAQ site: http://word.mvps.org
Email cannot be acknowledged; please post all follow-ups to the newsgroup so
all may benefit.

"E McElroy" wrote in message
...
As unpaid (I assume) evangelists for Word, I'm sure Microsoft's Marketing
department would insist that MVPs be kept informed on major changes such
as
this. It is certainly possible that the feature was dropped as a result of
a
survey but, unless they specifically said that, it's also quite possible
it
was a feature they didn't have time to add or it could have been simply an
oversight. This was, after all, a major change, and in major changes, some
things drop through the cracks. (.NET V1.0 had some famous early gaffes
where
important functionality was simply forgotten but, in fairness, .NET V1.0
was
a project of enormous proportions, far greater, I'm sure, than a rewrite
of
Word.)

All of which is to say, perhaps you can relay to Microsoft that the
feature
is missed and maybe it will return in the next minor release for those who
need or want it.

E McElroy

"DCH" wrote:

The deletion of the blue background/white text option in Word 2007 is
sending
me back to Word 2003. Can I uninstall Word 2007 and re-install Word
2003
while retaining the rest of Office 2007? And if so, can you tell me
how?

Many thanks for whatever suggestions anyone may have,

DCH