Developer MVPs of the Year

Microsoft’s Developer Division has created what has become a tradition over the last several years: recognizing exceptional contributors in the already exceptional MVP community. Technical Fellows Anders Hejlsberg and Brian Harry were hosts to this year's event that celebrated 29 community leaders during the Developer MVP Recognition Dinner.

 


 

"It was an honour to be invited and have a chat with everyone there. Who wouldn't want to have dinner with Anders Hjelsberg?" remarks Windows Azure MVP Maarten Balliauw

MVPs and Microsoft development team members had a lot to discuss with the recent release of Visual Studio 2013 and Windows 8.1. "Visual Studio 2013 and especially Blend brought a lot of improvements to Windows Store app development," says Silverlight MVP Laurent Bugnion

"The biggest thing that stands out for me is the friendliness and openness of the Microsoft people that take time out of their busy schedules to come," said Client Development MVP Dan Wahlin.
 

Recipients of this award are selected by MVP Award and product group team members including Jason Zander, Scott Hunter and Scott Hanselman, as well as voted on by their peers. Their outstanding contributions to technical communities range from providing feedback to help improve Microsoft products to delivering solutions and answers in forums. They also provide content to the community at events, online, or in print. Product team members  

 

When asked what he thinks of the dedication and passion of MVPs, Brian Harry shared the following story from the MVP Global Summit:

 

"Visual Studio ALM MVP Marcel de Vries from the Netherlands had already been asked to speak at VSLive on ALM topics when he found out the MVP summit dates. Rather than canceling, he asked the VS Live organizers to schedule all FOUR of his presentations on one day. He took the red eye to Florida landing at 7am, presented his 5 (he picked up another) sessions and was back at the MVP Summit the following day."

S. Somasegar, Corporate Vice President of Microsoft’s Developer Division, recently discussed the importance of MVPs to Microsoft during an interview at the November 2013 MVP Summit said, "The face-to-face communication [with MVPs] enables Microsoft to share what we are currently working on, share our plans, share our ideas and get feedback." He went on to say, “I see immense value in our MVP community. These are our best and most passionate customers, those who take it upon themselves to learn about everything we’re doing, to provide invaluable feedback, and to then help the rest of the world discover and make the most of our technologies. I view our MVPs as ambassadors to the technologies and work that we do at Microsoft. MVPs end up being a trusted connection for the engineering teams, helping both to guide the direction of our products and to help other customers successfully utilize Microsoft platforms and tools. I personally take any opportunity I get to spend time with MVPs around the world and to hear what they have to say: I find their perceptions of what we’re doing, how we’re doing it, and how we stack against the competition to be quite illuminating and insightful. In my experience, MVPs are both vocal and honest in their feedback to us – both where we are doing well, and more importantly where we should be doing better. That is super valuable.”

Congratulations to the following MVPs!

Jeff Levinson

ALM

James Szubryt

ALM

Neno Loje

ALM

Nik Molnar

ASP.NET

Anthony van der Hoorn

ASP.NET

Unai Zorrilla Castro

ASP.NET

James Newton-King

ASP.NET

Maarten Balliauw

Windows Azure

Alan Smith

Windows Azure

Matthieu Mezil

C#

Bill Wagner

C#

Mitchel Sellers

C#

Justin Rusbatch

C#

Jason Follas

C#

Alon Fliess

C++

Brian Lagunas

Client Dev

Morten Nielsen

Client Dev

Laurent Bugnion

Client Dev

Dan Wahlin

Client Dev

Steve Syfuhs

Dev Security

Mathias Brandewinder

F#

Sam Vanhoutte

MS Integration

Savarana Kumar

MS Integration

Dave Campbell

Silverlight

Klaus Löffelmann

VB

Deborah Kurata

VB

Jake Ginnivan

VSTO

Rudy Huyn

Windows Phone Dev

Ginny Caughey

Windows Phone Dev