>
> I believe this was due to the overall XBase market shrinking. This came from the conclusion by deep thinkers that the .dbf file was not suitable to store enterprise level data. In fact, it never was completely embraced by corporations for "enterprise level" data.
> MS realized they couldn't sell the .dbf file as an enterprise strength data storage mechanism. No other company (CA, Borland, Ashton-Tate) could sell the .dbf file as enterprise strength.
>
> Highest profit margins are with Enterprise level data storage.
>The XBase tool makers all followed the money.
>
>MS did a better job with its XBase tool than CA, Borland and Ashton-Tate.
>
>The more optimistic marketing process you referred to still occurs today within growing market segments.

Good points, IMO. Unfortunately, though, MS didn't see/consider VFP as a viable front end for SQL server, which might have helped to keep VFP around. But that, too, is water under the bridge, gone all the way to the ocean and back to heaven, to streeeetch the analogy.

The "leftover potential" of VFP lives or dies with the .NET efforts by Guineau and eTecnologia. And maybe the mysterious Fired Fox countdown clock (which is winding down fast). There may be a VFP party yet, if one or some or all of these efforts bear fruit, but I stopped holding my breath a long time ago. Which is not to say I've abandoned all hope, quite on the contrary: some of the stuff coming out of some of these projects is quite amazing, and it works, to boot. But it is still far from 100% compatibility (or anything even approaching that.) While I wait for something to maybe happen, I am happily paddling down the .NET river, whistling in C#...


Pertti

(P.S. I have stopped holding my breath with many other things, as well. That's why moved my virtual self to Åland Islands/Ahvenanmaa until the next U.S. presidential election and the end of the Iraq war...)