The way of the Microsoft MVP: While some bask, other current and former awardees ponder the program's direction

Microsoft has renewed over 2,600 MVPs and welcomed 37 new ones this month, the company reported. It is the second year that the company is using a big bang approach on MVP awards, with all of them coming in July rather than segments each quarter.

And while July 1 now serves to boost the good cheer, it also calls attention to the bad news like when seemingly worthy MVPs lose the title, or when the overall count of MVPs dips badly, like it appears to have done this year.

MVPs themselves have been looking into the matter as best they can, given Microsoft's well known secrecy over the program's workings. Jen Kuntz, has crunched some numbers on what happened overall to the program's size, noting how a few segments she is most interested in have faired. It wasn't pretty. Based on her figures:

• The overall pool declined 21.5% in the last year, down from 3,813.
• The GP MVP pool shrunk on July 1 from fifteen to ten. One, Belinda Allen, remains an MVP but now in the Data Platform segment.
• Business Solutions MVPs declined 16% overall. And the Canadian segment sank about 21%.

Michel de Rooij, a Microsoft MVP for Office Server and Services, looked across the award categories and found that all were down except AI, which doubled. He hypothesized that one reason for the declines was that Microsoft is now penalizing or otherwise de-prioritizing activities ...