Hi Francois,

thanks. MS has become like IBM (it happens to all large corporations). Remember the IBM PC Jr? With the funny keys because corporate didn't want to undersell their more expensive computers? I'd compare with with, e.g., Windows Mobile 5, 6, and 6.5, each of which demonstrated an inattentiveness to the customer in deference to the wishes of those in other parts of the company who want to promote their own agenda.

As Machiavelli pointed out (he wasn't proposing, fwiw, just pointing out) it takes a strong King to keep the Princes from fighting among themselves. Nobody survives at Apple who doesn't buy into the Steve Jobs vision. There are no Princes fighting among themselves. In fact, during iPhone development, the software and hardware foks were forbidden to talk to each other (or anyone else for that matter), and were in separate locations. Violation of this decree meant termination.

All that said, the development tools from Apple are, let us say on a family forum, less than satisfactory. C# and VS2010 looks great by comparison. So go figure.

Hank



>Hi Hank,
>
>I do not feel you need any kind of self justification on this forum. You are a great contributor on the Web. And that means "enough said". But may I say, as an early VFP-to-python-convert, thank you for this additional clarification.
>
>... And thanks Etecnologia for their effort - well in the American way - of trying something. That's one of the great thing what we used to love with the US way and spirit. Possibly quite lost in view of the support Etecnologia is currently getting here and elsewhere.
>
>MS has replaced IBM in brains. And Apple ... DEC. Well I expect that we should be happy with this world.