Mike,

I thought I had posed this question to JVP. If I did, good of you to answer anyway!

I am hoping for something a little more "radical", personally. Something way out of the ordinary, but justified, in my opinion, given past history of VFP.

I really would like to see something which includes *regular* contact with Mr. Green and the VFP folks. Wish lists here and notes to FOXMKTG have proven to be useless - usually *no* response at all, and rarely a positive response which doesn't happen!

We need a way to "weigh" the relative importance of various requirements, including VFP-team's input, and then some kind of final cut list followed by a plan for delivery. Something which can be followed-up.

This forum (UT) seems an ideal place to me for such a thing to happen. It is well known, open to all and has a wide audience. People here are thoughtful and generally anxiuos to contribute.

Whining and pre-announcing the death of VFP are not the way to go, but fighting for our needs *IS*. When things go totally unresponded BY THE PEOPLE IN THE KNOW (and I have seen Mr. Green logged in here at least once myself), then what you get in that vacuum is the sound of whining.

Regards,

Jim N

><< So how would YOU recommend that some "direction" for MS as regards VFP be organized? >>
>
>Well, basically all Microsoft cares about is $. So in order to make M$ more interested in VFP requires showing that they stand to make a big profit by fully committing to VFP and that they stand to lose a large amount of revenue if they don't. I think MS sees the VFP community as primarily one man shops doing consulting for mom & pop shops and so therefore their only revenue from VFP is the one copy they sold to the developer. (This is not entirely innacurate on the average BTW.) So, how do their minds get changed:
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>1. Everyone here that's developed an app for a fortune 1000 company or government agency or successful vertical market application should right a case study on their applications and send it to Robert Green. They should include why VFP was chosen vs. VB, Delphi, etc. for the application. (The low cost of VFP deployment should probably be ommitted as a reason.)
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>2. Everyone here that works for or with a major corporation should make it known why they feel VB don't cut it and that if VFP doesn't start to move along at a faster pace and get the features we've been asking for that you'll be moving to PB or Delphi or whatever and not VB.
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>3. We should focus our development efforts on making use of all of VS with a strong emphasis on VFP to show we're willing to play in this component world.
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>4. Anyone that can should register for Tech Ed next year and demand to see VFP.
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>5. Those that are regulars on the speaker circuit should make an effort to speak at Tech Ed on Visual Studio development and make sure their sessions include a lot of VFP.
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>6. In highlighting our applications we should pay special attention to those that are using SQL server that have resulted in lots of licensing fees going to MS and point out that 2nd choice to the VFP/SQL Server combination was Oracle and Oracle Developer 2000 and not VB/SQL Server.
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>7. Corporations using VFP should whine loudly about not being able to find certified VFP developers.
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>Will this work? Personally I doubt it, but I do think a positive approach to VFP that shows VFP can be a profitable product for MS would help a lot more than stricly whining and conceeding that the product is already dead.