>We would be far better off, especially given the superficiality of the "integration of VFP into VS 6", for MS and the VFP team to get out of the VS dream and to, instead, go back to serving the small to medium business and its capability to deliver the WHOLE SOLUTION!

This is a good point, Jim. Please allow me to add to it.

It is MS (I'm not including the VFP team) that has become myopic and rather grandiose with respect to the needs of small to medium size businesses. VS is positioned as an ENTERPRISE development suite. Bottom line is that MS wants to play in the same sandbox as IBM and Oracle and win the support of the MIS oldtimers who, for years, have been laughing at MS with respect to database technologies. This is their target and I believe this to be the reason why they are downplaying VFP because of the stigmas - xBase, .dbfs, .cdxs, no native compiler, blah, blah, blah - all those things which were never robust enough for their needs, and rightly so.

The problem is that everyone listening to the MS marketing "message" believes that it pertains to them - the message being enterprise development. With some organizations, VB and Access may be the best solution. In others, VFP may be the best way to go. Some may need SQL Server. Some may need VS, n-tiered solutions and so on. We should be learning as much as possible (particularily SQL Server 7.0 - cool stuff) because you never know when you are going to land a big one. A working knowledge DHTML and XML is important as well.

For whatever reason, MS is not segmenting their marketing strategy with respect to VS - probably because they are targeting the big guys. Unfortunately, many of the smaller guys (MIS & IT managers) are not keeping up with all this stuff and are getting confused. All the MS seminars and dog 'n pony shows should be designed to handle this and here lyeth the problem - VFP is being left out and there is absolutely no excuse for it, IMHO.

-Jeff