I would try the other suggestions in the thread, but if the component truly requires a "VARIANT" type, FoxPro cannot create that type. You could create a VB wrapper as a workaround. Here is an old blog post I wrote on the subject:

http://weblogs.foxite.com/joel_leach/2009/01/14/variants-on-fox/

>I have exactly the same problem and am scratching my head all along. Here is a sample of my code :
>
>Comp=CREATEOBJECT("XceedSoftware.XceedCompression")
>?oComp.License("xxxx")
>x=SPACE(100)
>?oComp.Compress("abhay",@x,.t.) && Returns 0
>?ocomp.GetErrorDescription(0) && Returns Operation completed successfuly.
>
>But the x variable remains blank. Nothing gets compressed at all.
>
>Just for this reason, I cannot decide for buying the Xceed component.
>
>Abhay