Funny... I thought I asked that q of Peter....

I think alan has gone further than any other person at MSFT would go and possibly further than any other person at MSFT COULD go. Meaning I am sure there are legal and pr people watching what MSFT employees say and do.

You do make good points below.

I did see your $$$ analysis of a potential P/L for the product...

Thinking out loud here... I wonder what the general overhead is for a single SKU is for MSFT.... How much do they allocate to the product for support ?, Marketing (lets not go there :>), general acctg, etc....



>Here's my question to you then... Just to clarify... Have you received an adequate answer to this qustion ?
>
>I've made that clear elsewhere.
>
>I think it is extremely easy to see others' pov, though. I think it was Sigler in 1995 who first said that the product was not strategic. So why wasn't the product canned then? If it's possible to review messages from back then, go back and see what I posted at the time.
>
>I've seen YAG suggesting that there are only tens of thousands of VFP developers compared to millions of NET developers. The message I took was that there aren't enough VFP developers to warrant ongoing versions, especially for a product that deviates from MS's offering. OK. People did engage this and ask about open source, but that's a separate issue.
>
>I've seen suggestions that Calvin et al were needed in or wanted to move to the VB.NET team. There were hints about this before the announcement, FWIW. OK.
>
>I've seen previous suggestions that Linq would provide features that would satisfy many if not all VFP developers, easing their migration to NET. The announcement was made at a time when these features are not yet complete. Unfortunate, but hints were getting out there and presumably other timing issues were paramount.
>
>One side-effect of the announcement was that a company creating a VFP NET compiler has had to publish its plans before it intended. Did you participate in the discussions about bringing VFP into NET? You don't need to be a genius to understand how some people are interpreting this.
>
>I've seen various people turning up to scoff and belittle, then acting astonished if people react- Gosh, you're only accepted by the hilarious child dunce ignoramus liars here if you have a 100% pro-VFP stance. These people are so unreasonable.
>
>Remind me of anything I left out, if you think it provides a better explanation.
>
>My pov is that *any* company can can (no, not the French dance ;-) ) a product if they want to, unless there are contractual obligations not to do so. MS is allowed to can its product. As with any canning, of course there may be fallout from disappointed customers. We're seeing the tip of the iceberg.
>
>Final point: IMHO it's important to distinguish between official announcements and comments made on UT. I didn't use to think there was such a distinction, but I do now.