Evangelism from Microsoft

Microsoft has designated certain employees as "evangelists": people knowledgeable in the details of specific products and competent at presentations.

It strikes me that the folks in the evangelist role were mostly, well, preaching to the choir. They would appear at events where one would expect Microsoft users, fans, and enthusiasts to gather.

I'm not sure that Microsoft needs them, and it seems that Microsoft is coming to the same conclusion. A recent blog post on MSDN seems to indicate that the Developer Evangelist group is being disbanded. (The post is vague.)

Can Microsoft compete (and survive) without the evangelist team? I believe that they can.

First, I believe that Satya Nadella is confident in his position as CEO of Microsoft, and that confidence flows down to the entire company.

Second, I believe that Microsoft has confidence in the direction of its products and services. It has ceased being the "Windows company" in which everything revolved around Windows. Today, Microsoft has embraced outside technologies (namely open source) and developed its cloud services (Azure), competing successfully with them.

In short, Microsoft feels good about its current position and its future.

With such confidence in its products and services, Microsoft doesn't need the re-assurance of evangelists. Perhaps they were there to tell Microsoft -- not customers -- that its products were good. Now Microsoft believes it without their help.