And I don’t disagree with them. In fact, think about what MVPs do. They help customers fix problems. Problems that Microsoft itself should be fixing, and that most users would think Microsoft should fix for free.

The fact that there are so many of them doesn’t make me think ‘Oh, this is great of Microsoft.’ It makes me think ‘Wow, Microsoft support is so horrid, they have all these people who don’t even work there try to fix the software.’

Don’t get me wrong, I still support the MVP program, I think it’s a great idea. But are they Influencers? No, I don’t think they are. They are what they are. They are people who try to help customers work around mistakes Microsoft makes, and that is a good thing.