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The history of VFP
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General information
Forum:
Visual FoxPro
Category:
Other
Environment versions
Visual FoxPro:
VFP 9 SP1
OS:
Windows XP SP2
Network:
Windows XP
Database:
Visual FoxPro
Miscellaneous
Thread ID:
01501322
Message ID:
01501329
Views:
206
And the reason Microsoft didn't put more effort and marketing into VFP is that it really competed with other more strategic developer tools Microsoft offered. Microsoft really wanted VFP developers to move to VB and then .NET. I was never enthused about promoting .NET to VFP developers, it just became part of my job. And I spent half my time dealing with issues within MS to properly have FoxPro mentioned online and other issues, kind of internal marketing and dealing with VFP within Microsoft.

As you may have already seen, I'm very enthusiastic about Servoy as a great developer tool and platform. It's one of many great options for VFP developers other than .NET. http://servoy.com/foxpro. I think the majority of VFP developers who haven't already moved to .NET are probably very unlikely to ever move to .NET.

>It really is quite simple. Foxpro was killed by Microsoft because it didn't have a big enough MSFT executive cheerleader. No cheerleader, no marketing budget, which leads to diminishing sales, then ostracization, and finally justification for cancellation. Hey look! A self-fulfilling prophecy. That VFP made it all the way to version 9 is a testament to that small but remarkable development team and a fiercely loyal following by VFP developers.
>
>I don't blame MSFT for making the decision, but I'll be damned if I'm moving to .NET if I can help it. What's the point? If I'm going to write an app from scratch wouldn't I choose a multi-OS development platform so I can grab that growing group of Mac users too?
>
>The future is not all that bright for Microsoft. Google owns search. Facebook owns social. Twitter owns real time. Android is killing it in mobile. Apple is capturing the young minds. Apache dominates web server. Microsoft still owns the corporate desktop but with HTML5 allowing better UI, a paradigm shift is underway where end-users will be back to the equivalent of dumb terminals which will significantly reduce corporate IT staff minions. Google Chrome OS or something similar will own corporate desktops in the coming decade.
>
>I see nothing but dwindling sales for Microsoft in the next decade. MS Office upgrades are pointless. Desktop OS upgrades are pointless. Server OS upgrades are pointless. Microsoft used to be a pack of pirahnas that destroyed its competitors. Now it's a pack of cannibalistic pirahnas in an ever shrinking fishbowl.
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