In fairness, Ken Levy always said that the best way to support VFP was to upgrade and keep buying, though he was of the opinion that buying MSDN was best for VFP. Who knows, maybe people did stop buying MSDN to the point where it wasn't easy to justify ongoing investment in VFP. ;-)

The unfortunate timing of the announcement (before availability of promised NET improvements to satisfy VFP people) does seem to suggest there was more to it than aged sales figures. I got the feeling that YAG's hand was somewhat forced and that he was stressed as $%$#^ because there was nothing he could say to make it better.

Some of these MVPs seem to be a bit stressed too. I guess that's the joy and hurt of being part of a privileged in-group: sure it's great to have more of a finger on the pulse, but other times you really, really want to "say it how it is" but can't. And maybe there's more to it that makes MVPs feel the lash more than the rest of us. For example, what's going to happen to VFP MVP awards?

IMHO the best "leadership" today would be ongoing discussion of options- not just NET and typed datasets, but also staying with VFP, dLinq, PHP, dabo, the VFP compiler, even dBase. And maybe closer examination of career changes, looking at project planning or design, which IMHO has a very bright future. At least people would be helped to get a better understanding of all the options they do have- you know, "accentuate the positive, eliminate the negative" and all that.