>Ever? Yes. Recent? No.
>
>>Has MS marketing ever tried to give its most data-centric, data-capable language the opportunity to capture real market share?

You may open a can of worms with that. I don't remember Microsoft doing anything with it other than saying how great Visual Studio is. I guess there were a couple (2?) adds in VFP developer centered magazines since they bought out Fox software, but preaching to the choir doesn't do anything to market share.