>And, on the other hand, micro$oft will probably never put in a strong effort to support "not invented here" tools.
I'm sure that attitude will change in the near future - as they lose market share! If they don't move to where the developers are - they'll be history.

>I myself can't justify not using all the fox and MS stuff I've learned to make that drastic a decision to leave the Windows environment.

But can you afford not move off MS stuff! The world is changing very fast with the web, mobile devices, etc.. None of which I can say MS is the market leader. If fact, if not for Word, and the Windows (the OS and only because of history) I doubt MS would be a player in today's fast changing software environment. BTW if you want use what you learned using VFP - take a good look at python.

I realized the above a long time ago. There is no reason to spend money on Word, and there is no reason to spend money on Windows. And as the world of software continues to change corp. america will realize it. And it will a hard sell for MS to suggest that a propriety platform is the way to go.
Johnf