I’d like to appreciate the guy who refers me as a Microsoft MVP. He is Kerry Jiang, the author of Supersocket, an open source communication framework.
It’s an interesting journey to join MVP program in the first 2 years and I joined MVP summit twice in US and visited the beautiful Seattle City Area and Bellevue. And I have to admit that Microsoft branding is super great because when I pass in the MVP certificate to the visa officer, he didn’t embrass me with a lot of questions but just give me a 10 years US visa.
The reasons I choose to join Microsoft MVP program
I cannot say these reasons are all considered before I join the MVP program. But it doesn’t matter. Here they are.
- Help NPOI project grow and create the ecosystem
- Get internal technical materials from Microsoft (not public ones on MSDN)
- Help build a better .NET community in China
So far, looks everything is so good, right? I have reasons to join and I enjoy the MVP program.
However, these reasons are all missed after I joined MVP program. The MVP program doesn’t help involve any new contributor to NPOI. There is no channels we can get internal technical materials. I’m still relying on MSDN or Microsoft Doc to get what I need. And the .NET community is getting worse and worse in China since 2015 and companies start giving up .NET and migrate to Java at that moment. Anyway, these are small issues I can bear with.
Reputation of MVP program in China is getting worse since 2016
There is another MVP whose name is Frank Xu Lei. He has many titles for himself.
- Founder of 54peixun (54peixun is a training company. peixun is a Chinese pinyin which means training in English)
- Microsoft Invited Speaker 微软特邀讲师
- The First Speaker from China on Channel 9
At the begining, I don’t know him at all. I just know he is another Micrsoft MVP. However, there are a few strangers in the community complaining that some MVPs are cheating their money. The training they got from Frank Xu Lei is a shit. Since I’m also a MVP and it’s weird someone is blaming MVP because we have the same title from Microsoft, then I started the investigation on this guy. And the investigation result totally surprised me.
- This guy is NOT Microsoft certificated trainer (MCT)
- This guy has never been employed by Microsoft. He doesn’t have Microsoft alias at all.
- Microsoft Invited Speaker is a word created by himself because he used to be invited to a Microsoft MSDN China online webinar. In this forum, a group of invited speakers are called MSDN invited speaker. Then he changed the name to Microsoft invited speaker.
- He didn’t publish any videos on channel 9. I have no idea why he call himself the first speaker from China.
The purpose of all these title is to prove he is awesome in technial area and he has been trusted and certificated by Microsoft and you can trust him. He charge 10,000 RMB (1300 USD)for each trainee. According to my rough estimate, he earned at least 1,500,000 RMB — 2,000,000RMB during 2014–2016 by this training business.
I have no idea what Microsoft China legal department is doing during the past few years. After this investigation, I reported this to China MVP program manager, Miss Christina Liang. Hope she can involve Microsoft legal department. However, she thought there is nothing wrong with Frank Xu Lei and moreover she believe I’m the cheating guy. Because Xu Lei told her that I am his competitor and I also wanna sell my own training lesson. That’s the major reason I expose him as a cheater. The fact is that I NEVER deliver any charged lesson in the past 10 years. If you can find one post on Internet about non-free Tony’s training, please feel free to expose me.
Company Culture difference in China
Technical experts like Microsoft MVP are well respected by their non-technical boss out of China. That’s why MVPs can promote Microsoft technology very well globally. They are the leader in technical area and they are trusted by business guys.
The culture in China company is opposite. Usually, non-technical boss/lead can determine what kind of technology we should use (like Java). It doesn’t matter if you are a MVP or some other certificated expert. A good technical lead in China may not be a real technical expert but someone who just follow the orders from non-technical boss. I cannot say this culture doesn’t happen in companies out of China but it’s everywhere in China.
If you take a look at some local MVP program such as Tencent MVP and Alibaba MVP, you will see the difference because most of these MVP are CTO or technical decision maker of these companies. It’s more like a CTO club instead of technical expert club. I have to say this kind of localized MVP is easier to fit to the China company culture.
Reasons I resigned Microsoft MVP
To summarize, here are the reasons I resigned Microsoft MVP in China
- I don’t wanna share a title (Microsoft MVP) with a cheater. This is never acceptable from my side.
- Microsoft MVP title didn’t help me find a good job in China. There is very little difference.
- My Open source project NPOI is not promoted or get growth from MVP program. No difference at all. I’m still using my own channel to promote this project.
- No free speech about Microsoft products. Some MVP in China are Microsoft fanboys/fangirls. They don’t allow you to say anything bad about Microsoft. A healthy technical community should allow different voices about Microsoft technology and products.
