SNIP

>1) "As far as forming a partnership with a third party is concerned, we’ve heard from a number of large FoxPro customers that this would make it impossible for them to continue to use FoxPro since it would no longer be from an approved vendor."

This bothers me. It smacks of pure PR and cya. I'd like to know who MSFT broached the subject with (if it ocurred at all). If MSFT offered it as a possibility, it should have been mentioned to all developers that it was being considered. No mention of the intellectual property restraint, only supposed customers' responses to the option. Ok, so maybe an agreement could be reached (protecting the IP) with the 3rd party. Unless a specific vendor was mentioned, how would they know whether or not it would be (or already is) approved? Unless all of the customers they asked have only 1 approved vendor: MSFT. Don't forget, MSFT had to become an approved vendor at one time as well. The same process could occur with the vendor.