One of them was Kerry Nietz. His book "FoxTales" is still a great account of life at Fox Software.

http://www.amazon.com/FoxTales-Behind-Scenes-Fox-Software/dp/0983965544/ref=sr_1_5?ie=UTF8&qid=1377635305&sr=8-5&keywords=foxtales

>I think probably most people thought it was good news when they were bought by MSFT. But, I would think anyone who had met the team (in Toledo) knew it would not be the same once they were swallowed up by MSFT. Those 5 or 6 guys (and gals) were programming circles around Ashton-Tate, etc.
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>>>I remember those days well, lived through those days. I think you are right in your assumption. Who can blame Fox and Doc Dave for selling (tons of $$$), but I never once figured that it was going to be great for us developers in the long run as far as Fox was concerned.
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>>I had exactly the opposite reaction. I couldn't have been happier.
>>I was in the business of selling and modifying SBT software then and I happened to be with the SBT people when the purchase was announced.
>>They thought that having MS behind them would give their product a big boost, and they were right.
>>Unfortunately, the reverse occurred when MS withdrew support.
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>>>>>>>I do find it amusing, however, that it only took 20 years for Microsoft to finally kill VFP through non-marketing. If you don't market it, you don't sell it...and eventually you can say "Well, it's not selling, so we're not going to develop it any more"
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>>>>>>>Self fulfilling prophecy anyone?
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>>>>>>Yep exactly. WHY it didn't sell is a whole different thing. Plus I think it must be hard for MS to even know how many people were actually using it. Lot of developers got VFP with MSDN subscription or as part of dev studio - so maybe no one used VFP as part of dev studio - maybe some did - but no real way to tell. VFP was always different animal than rest of dev studio - the controls for the screens are all different than all the others and the way it paints forms etc etc etc. It just didn't fit in with everything else so of course they had to give it the ax. X-Base environment was dying prior to death of VFP too so all these things together and it's just not worth it to MS to keep it alive.
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>>>>>I've never really followed this whole VFP debate but weren't MS intending to include VFP as a supported .NET language - and the idea was rejected by the VFP community ?
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>>>>Given that MS's 'mode of operation' around that time was 'buy whatever's better than we can produce, gut it and kill it' (anyone remember Stacker?), it's my belief that MS bought VFP 'cuz they couldn't out-Fox Fox with Access with the plan on yanking the good stuff, backhanding it into Access and howdy-poofda! LOOK! Better than Fox!! and homegrown to boot!!