As for marketing, you could always utilize your wit and easy-going style to write a Visual FoxPro related article that shows it in a positive light and then post it somewhere on the internet. Imagine if 100,000+ Visual FoxPro developers all took the time to do something similar just a few times a year... that would certainly constitute a marketing blitz. Improving the overall Visual FoxPro experience, increasing its visibility, and upgrading to the newest version are all things that the VFP Community can do... but it takes a little effort, time, and money.
I understand your comments regarding marketing and the basic arguments that are made for why Visual FoxPro has been dealt a bad hand. However, every time someone reads something about a product it's considered an "impression" (from a advertising standpoint). How many times has someone read "VFP is Dead" or "MS is killing VFP" or "MS doesn't market or support VFP" over the years in a post, blog entry, or article by well-intentioned VFP developers that are given to Fear, Uncertainty, and Doubt (FUD)? Though the exact number can't be known, it is certainly in the tens of millions. What kind of impression are you making?
The world is what we make of it. If you feel that Visual FoxPro needs a little more marketing and PR, it is certainly within your power to do something about it. MS doesn't hold all the cards, to imply that they do is a defeatist attitude that flies in the face of reason. We develop in one of the greatest data centric, object oriented development tools that has ever existed. There's no reason that is not marketable, with or without help from Microsoft.
>Excerpt from that site
>
>"...Fox in Microsoft's Tool-Suite Coop
>By Darryl K. Taft
>August 26, 2005 ..."
>
>"...Despite putting FoxPro features in the key Orcas language, Microsoft has said it will be releasing another version of FoxPro, FoxPro 9..."
>
>Wow looks like that marketing campaign done for the release of VFP 9 was a HUGE success <vbg>
>
>Or then again perhaps it was a typo and the author wanted to write 10. If it's the case then perhaps that author knows things that we don't.
>
>Or perhaps the marketing campaign has'nt started yet.
>
>Hmm to do one (marketing campaign) or not to do one (marketing campaing) that is (the everlasting) question.
>
>But anyways I'm surprised that they mentioned FoxPro and Visual FoxPro. Cause this could place them in a delicate situation. If they took DATA things from the Fox to put it in .Net then it must mean that the Fox is not so bad at handling data. If the Fox is not so bad then why MS hardly ever say anything good about the Fox (Marketing).
>
>Oh well I'm getting too excited again. Darn where did I put those pills <g>
>
>
>>I just blogged about today's eWeek online news story that mentions the "Zorro" team working on new data features for VB.NET. (Thanks to Russell Campbell for pointing me to the news.)
>>
>>The blog entry is here:
>>
>>
http://talkingfox.blogspot.com/2005/08/someones-been-talking-eweek-reveals.html>>
>>The complete news story is here:
>>
>>
http://www.eweek.com/article2/0,1895,1852979,00.asp>>
>>Very interesting...
