I recently had a chance to talk about the Microsoft Most Valuable Professional program with Sean O'Driscoll, Global Director of Product Support Services and Community. Here is an excerpt:

ActiveWin.com: Has Microsoft’s continued commitment to the program been ensured?

Sean O'Driscoll: Well, we hope this announcement goes a long way to dispel any fears or vibes along those lines. We have had this announcement planned for awhile, and we started on the summit months ago in terms of venues, dates and other challenges in planning a large scale event. I would not want people to think we are reacting to those rumors in any way – because we are well ahead of that curve. But certainly we hope people see this as a strong statement to say look, “we are committed to the program, the program has continued to grow, we continue to really focus on quality of award recipients, to the summit, etc. We are committed to touching MVPs perhaps in more ways than people have really seen. For example, we are doing work on regional summits to go out locally and interact with MVPs on their home turf. All of these are important statements to the program.