>>Well, I remember being invited to Redmond at Microsoft's expense with 25-30 other FoxPro experts to see a preview of the product and provide feedback. I remember the '95 DevCon (the largest ever).
>
>Quite frankly, that's why I take what you and other "FoxPro experts" say with a grain of salt. Once you get in that camp, you have to keep the behemoth happy or you won't be in that group anymore. And that kills the marketing and competitive advantages. The bottom line is that it behooves you to not be too critical of M$.
>

I assure that, if you saw transcripts of those meetings, you wouldn't think that way. Almost every meeting of that sort that I've been in over the years has featured the experts telling the team they've got it wrong over some aspect of the product. We didn't just sit there and listen--these were interactions. In addition, almost every one of us there took our responsibility to the community seriously.

And if you think I've avoided being critical of Microsoft, you obviously haven't read the Hacker's Guide. Big bug icons all over the place. Lots of criticism in an incredibly public venue.

We won't even discuss the fact that I wrote a book about OpenOffice.org.

>>I just think it's silly to say that was the intention from day 1.
>
>Maybe I should reread my posts, but I don't think I said that.

Here's what you said in the message I first responded to:

"Let's remember that after M$ bought Fox Software, they did very little to promote it and very little to kill the idea that they were going to kill it."

I guess after could mean much later, but that certainly isn't how I read it. And I've seen this idea that Microsoft bought Fox just to kill it over and over (not necessarily from you).

Tamar