Hi Mark,

>>If this is true, then why should they spend money on marketing anything.
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>It's not black and white. You can't use marketing to get people to buy something they just don't want, at least not intelligent people like us programmers. :)
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>>> This goes beyond ads and seminars. For example, when was the last time you saw the word "Visual FoxPro" on the MSDN Home Page - there are continual references and links to the other VS Tools. VFP ommissions are the rule (not the exception)within the MS developer tools media.<<
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>That follows understandably from the amount of money they expect to make from it. Even Microsoft has limited resources.
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I am always surprised when I read statements like the above - I wonder why it is that many people are so quick to make up Micorsoft's excuses for them???
I believe that it is strongly arguable that MS has been solely responsible for the demise of the FP/VFP developer population, and this really has little or nothing to do with promotion.
It has much to do, though, with product quality and product content and product direction.
Is it only me, or might you also be bothered by the (quite) recent allegations that MS is promoting VJ++ as a mid-tier component??? If there is any truth to this at all, what does that portend for VFP???


>>People didn't want browsers until they saw one.
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>Yeah, Netscape's. :) Microsoft didn't have to gamble on people's desires there.
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>>> People didn't want spreadsheets until they saw one. People didn't want GUI OS until they saw one. In general, people only have a fuzzy idea what they want until they see it for the first time. <<
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>VFP isn't exactly unknown. And yes, I agree that if Microsoft were to put a lot of money into advertising it, more people would use it. But would that be enough people to make it worthwhile? How many ads are there for _any_ database product?
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>>This is not true - it is like saying that the spreadsheet market is small.
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>The spreadsheet market is huge, especially on PCs. The database market is not.
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>>But that is not the point.
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>Well, just let me know when you get around to reaching it. :)
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>>VFP comes with VS so your point is moot
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>Actually, I think this refutes your own point: if VS users get it for free, why on earth should Microsoft market it??
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>>>what happened to all the "right-tool-for-the-right-job" chorus MS had us all singing? Is not VFP one of the tools?
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>In the head to head comparisons that MS has made putting VFP against other database tools, VFP wins. I think it's unquestionable that they think it's the best tool for database applications (they've said so explicitly). The trouble is that there's more to the computer world than databases. I certainly wouldn't pick VFP as my only language. Most developers only use one.

Above you state, and quite correctly in my humble opinion, that "most developers only use one" (language), though you personally use more than one.
I find myself at this very moment doing what I did my very best to avoid - learn VB 6.0! This is extremely troublesome to me, for the time it takes to the brain-power it takes to the brain cells it occupies to the learning curve before I can be proficient at the language.
It is absolutely WRONG of MS to expect that people should learn more than one language to do a reasonable job at any given moment, and I put it that way because I know and have used at least 5 languages myself, but never at the same time - I progressed as time went by and jobs/situations changed.
I have never, by the way, seen MS state in any *serious* way that VFP is the best database application language, and they certainly have demonstrated that they don't really believe such.

Jim N