>>>It sure was when they bought Foxpro.
>>
>>Strategic is capturing the Windows database development market, but never strategic as in the main development or main database platform.
>
>Okay, now it's time someone here extensively explains to me what 'strategic' really means, in the United States and English language.

Peter,

There seems a "standard" in place with Microsoft proponents here that for Microsoft to do **anything** it MUST be "strategic".
It's as if no company - but especially Microsoft - EVER does any work on anything that is not "strategic". When something is not "strategic" then it defaults to being a "good business decision" to stop working on it.

As you suggest, "strategic" therefore has no definition. It is strictly in the eye of the beholder.

While for Microsoft .NET is clearly "strategic", it seems to me that some of its 'sub-products' are far less so.
Many here seem to think that it it ain't .NET then it has no place in Microsoft's repertoire. Hopefully, Microsoft is a tad smarter than to operate that way.

Microsoft **could** have made VFP an item in a (strategic) objective to woo/keep the small-medium business market. But at this point I believe Microsoft considers any company *under* 6,000 employees to be "small business" and they don't seem to hold much interest for the REAL small/medium business market. Even though that market collectively has hundreds of thousands of licenses for Windows and Office and a few other Microsoft offerings.

Some day Microsoft will buy for millions of $$$ a product "built on" the VFP model. And the cycle will repeat itself again.