Hi jim,

More lousy arguments:

There are a very talented pool of developers in the vfp team. It's costing me $x to have them satisfy a number of vfp developers. If I move them to another division (say, vb, for example), they'll satisfy 100 times (per Ken's statement also in this thread) more customers for the same money. I don't mean to be facetious, but the words "no brainer" and "duh" come to mind.

Regarding what's wrong with my arguments:

"MS knew that foxpro's user based wanted a free royalty-free distribution model". Yes, they knew that when they bought vfp. Actually, I'm still baffled about the fact that Microsoft continued to develop vfp. At the time they were just coming out with Access and I figured, they're buying the competition to ensure that Access becomes the new database standard (dbase was the standard at the time). The fact that FoxPro wasn't locked away in a dungeon somewhere in Redmond is a complete mistery to me.

>2) Why would it be that VB users would definitively go to SQL Server (or MSDE)?

Yes, there are other options, but I feel comfortable sticking to a single vendor. I've been stuck too many times between two vendors blaming each-other for a problem and not willing to talk to one another in order to help me. I think that's the case with most developers, but then that's not just my opinion, but speculation.

>3) Why does it follow that MS has to make a boodle of money on every 'product' they have???? Do they make a lot of money on Internet Explorer? Do they make a lot of money on the various Windows update tools they give away?

IE is another mistery to me. I found it extremely ironic that the product Microsoft makes the least money on (it's free) is the one that landed them on the defendant's chair in an anti-trust case. Regarding making a boodle of money on every product, let me ask you ''why not?''.

>4) MS got lots of flack from the VB developer community when they terminated VB at version 6. I wonder if they're ready for additional flack that might be forthcoming from both the VFP developer community and the installed USER base when they announce the end of VFP???? There are miles of difference between developer communities and happy installed users. Faced with a need to replace users can get sufficiently POed to say 'anything but MS to replace it' and back it up with action.

I honestly don't believe that MS gives a hoot about the flack they're likely to get from a group that amounts to 1% of their vb developers, not all of which gave them flack. I also don't think that users will massively go on strike and boycott Microsoft products. I, for example, am what would be considered a power user, and I've cursed microsoft's products countless times, yet, it hasn't crossed my mind to go to linux or a mac. It's far too comfortable here in familiar grounds to go about migrating elsewhere.

>How's this for MS' longer-term business strategy... Word documents and Excel spreadsheets will integrate seamlessly with SQL Server (via XML) and fully eliminate the need for application programmers and your .NET languages will strictly be used to impart a bit of pizzazzzz to what the user sees.

From what I've seen during the past 30 years in this industry, there will always be a need for custom programs. There is always something that someone needs that they can't do with what they have right now.

alex