What is Microsoft Integration MVP?

I enjoyed being a BizTalk server MVP for 6 years. Still I’m a MVP, but now I’m called Microsoft Integration MVP rather than BizTalk Server MVP. Recently Microsoft introduced a new category of MVP discipline called Microsoft Integration MVP (Most Valuable Professional). In the past MVP awards were awarded based on individual technologies and product specialties. For example SQL Server MVP, Connected Systems MVP, BizTalk Server MVP, SharePoint MVP etc. Awarding people on product/technology basis served the purpose for so many years. But now it’s getting harder to slice the award on one single vertical. If we take the case of Integration, it’s very unlikely you’ll just work with BizTalk server. The scope of integration is spread across various platforms. Example: You will be doing some work building WCF services, You will take advantage of Windows Azure Service Bus, Queue, Topics etc., You’ll be working on SSIS, Stream Insight, Service Broker part of SQL server connecting systems together, You may be working on Windows Workflow either standalone or integrated inside SharePoint etc. You may be an expert in BizTalk server, but still, on a practical level, you’ll be touching one or more of these related technologies. So after internal discussions with the corresponding MVP communities, Microsoft decided to create this new MVP discipline called “Microsoft Integration MVP” that focus more horizontally across various Microsoft technologies all focused on Integration scenarios. To start-off, they merged all the BizTalk, Connected Systems and some Windows Azure MVP’s into this single group. There is currently 72 MVP’s present in this group.