>>But isn't this refuted by VB's success?

How many basic dialects are out there? Specifcally, what happend to GW-Basic, Q-Basic, etc. Who was/is the one clear winner - Visual Basic. As far as xBase goes, several dialects continued to exist - dBase, Clipper and Foxpro - each with both common capabilities and very different capabilities.

So no, I think the circumstances are very different.

Also, lets remember that Bill G. both programmed and liked the BASIC Language.

>>I think the issue has more to do with the XBase langauge as a whole. A standard was never created and the language became fragmented.
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>But isn't this refuted by VB's success?