One of the complaints I sometimes hear is that Microsoft doesn’t listen to its customers. I guess I can understand that – occasionally I feel that way about companies like Apple and VMware – I’m just fortunate enough to have good links into Microsoft when I need to get some information or provide some feedback. Sometimes criticism of Microsoft is valid but there are also times that its unfounded, or based on misinformation (some people just like to knock anything that Microsoft does… and just by writing that, I’ll probably get labelled as a fanboy).

Well, here in the UK, the Microsoft TechNet team is looking for new ways to engage with the community and to solicit feedback on Microsoft’s products and technologies. The principle is that IT Pros can submit their anonymous feedback on the UK TechNet website and Microsoft will periodically (monthly or quarterly based on traffic) analyse the comments to gain insights regarding systemic issues that are highlighted, before responding with the summarised feedback from the survey, together with Microsoft and MVP-identified resources (blog posts, articles, books, user groups, etc.) that may help to address those concerns.

Whether this takes off is yet to be seen – as I said, it’s still a pilot – but it’s a positive step. I wouldn’t expect to see sweeping changes made to products as a result (hey, I’ve been banging the “we need USB support for guests in Hyper-V” drum for long enough without any luck and I know I’m not the only one!) but it might just help you to identify that missing piece of information that is key to the success (or otherwise) of a project.

Just be careful what you wish for… you might get it!