I've been reading this new book called "Barbarians Led by Bill Gates". The book is from the point of view of the original Windows programmer. A sentence in it struck me about "Chairman Bill's" thinking:
pg 15.
"Gates wanted all of the languages to be the same-BASIC. After all Gates had written it. But despite Chairman Bill's monument to code, the computer world needed to move on."
Also nowhere in this books is the purchase of Foxpro mentioned but VB is only mentioned twice.
Here are some of my opinion points:
1) VFP is not a strategic product for Chairman Bill (see above paragraph).
2) If he dumps VFP there is some competititor who will take up the "cause".
3) Maybe us oldtimers will live out our careers with VFP but I am training newtimers to use VFP and they see the benefits when compared to other development environments.
4) I believe people are looking for alternatives. (Look at the Linux market for example).
5) I have been battling this FP thing for years with clients. The winning strategy is to make your clients/employers have faith in you (not VFP or VB).
Costas