[Dan Freeman]

At TechEd in 1997, one of the evening events divided the hall into four
quadrants, each with a specialization and each with "cuisine" all its own.

The Office quadrant got sushi. The Back Office quadrant got an elaborate
Italian buffet. What did developers get? WHITE CASTLE! g

Dan

E McElroy wrote:
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