MVPs Play Critical Role in Visual Studio 2012 Launch

MVPs demonstrated their expertise and commitment to the developer community throughout the recent launch of Visual Studio 2012—including providing a range of valuable tips and tricks on this blog. Tweets, blog posts, forum discussions and community engagements are just a small portion of the contributions made by MVPs prior to and during the release. And to celebrate, MVPs and other members of the developer community gathered at Seattle, Washington’s beautiful Pier 66 for the launch while an estimated 50,000 joined online to see the new features of Visual Studio 2012.

“I think a lot of the storyboard, feedback and some of the suspend/resume stuff developers will notice first. There’s a lot of good stuff,” said Visual Studio ALM MVP Wes MacDonald who attended the live launch.

MVPs Anuj Chaudhary, Deborah Kurata, William Wegerson, Dustin Davis, Esteban Garcia, Peter Kellner and Mike Douglas shared insight into the new features of Visual Studio 2012 via the MVP blog and participated in live Q&A sessions via Twitter. This proved to be a great opportunity for the Visual Studio community to learn tips and tricks, ask questions and get answers from experts.

Globally, MVPs hosted Visual Studio 2012 roadshows which helped showcase the new features to an estimated 700 people across the globe. With events featuring presentations by Microsoft product teams, developer MVPs also shared their own real-world expertise and knowledge.

Microsoft offered MVPs early access to various stages of Visual Studio 2012 in production and they provided valuable qualitative feedback through online meetings and live events such as the MVP Global Summit and conferences such as TechEd, DevConnection and VSLive.

“It really helps shape how we finish and ship the product,” said Windows Azure Development CVP Jason Zander.

You can read each of the MVPs’ original blog posts leading up to the launch of Visual Studio 2012 here .