>Yes, Sylvain, there is little any more that is straightforward and simple, even when it feels like it should be and some suggest that it is.
>
>Now imagine a world with VFP as mid-level, with OCXs, and some SQL product at back end, and who knows what at front end! All this will have to be maintained (bug fixes and new features) as well as enhanced, probably across hundreds of machines.
>
>When will we find the "window" to do this stuff? How will it all be synchronized? etc.
>
>There is a real need to continue to have s SINGLE product (VFP) which can meet the needs of thousands of small/medium businesses, with at most the concomitant deployment of DCOM but with nothing else being mandatory to keep afloat and to be able to grow.
>

I agree completely. When a company has hundreds of users for every one programmer, they can afford to invest in all the R&D they need to get all the new technologies incorporated into their systems. But a smaller company needs to keep R&D and system development costs down. And there are a lot of small/medium businesses out here!

Joe