Hi Joe,

I agree with both of you as well as with JohnK's assertion that these incidents hurt VFP's credibility.

I feel that we all, in our own little ways, 'market' (with a small "m") VFP at every opportunity we get. Even me, though some might suspect otherwise from what I post here.

However, MARKETING, is decidedly not our job and it surely is Mr. Green's - see response by Craig B. to me earlier in this thread.

And on the practical level, what iota of a chance would any one of us have of actually contacting the person who actually placed any ad???? I can assure you that the answer is *none*.
Hell, I couldn't even find a MS person to have an address corrected for my VS 6.0 Enterprise Edition registration. I tried for weeks. I eventuially got it done by total "accident" - as a user of some MS 'service' I was called by a survey compnay to ask how I felt about the handling of the issue I had called about and when I registered disappointment I got another call a week later from someone who actually cared. Had I not got that survey call, I would still be stymied in such a simple endeavour. So imagine trying to locate who placed an ad!?

Frankly though, since Mr. Green seems to acknowledge that they do a poor job of communicating (with us developers) once a product ships, I look forward to their fixing of THAT area even more than their fixing their "marketing".

Finally, at least we seem (collectively, as a group of developers) to have gotten beyond raising a three-cheers for every single ad for VFP someone happens to spot.

Now, if we can only let MS and the VFP team speak for themselves rather than having their apparent proxies speak for them, we will really be making progress.

Cheers

Jim N

>I agree.
>
>If we are at a presentation and ask where VFP is at, and the speakers says "I don't know too much about VFP" or something worse, who is going to be embarassed?? The speaker usually has some credibility with the audience. Somebody in the audience asking about VFP in a room full of VB programmers will probably just draw out some snickers.
>
>How many MS speakers are there? I have gone to about 10 presentations and only seen about 4 different speakers. I don't think there are too many. Narrow that down to just those speaking about development. Why can't Robert Green get together with these people and sit them down (or at least call them) and let them know what VFP can do? I was just at a presentation called "DEV310: Building Data-Driven Internet and Intranet Applications" and VB was mentioned 4 or 5 times. VI the same. VC once or twice. Access 3 or 4 times. VFP not once.
>
>Why doesn't Robert Green call these guys up and introduce himself and let them know what VFP databases can do? Why doesn't he point them to the MIND article? Why doesn't he let them know that VFP can produce COM components with support for MTS. Hey, I'm not the expert on this stuff. Robert Green should be. And he should dedicate some time to educating people within MS that are going to be educating the public.
>
>The more I think about it, the more it doesn't make sense. Robert Green asks us to do the promotion for VFP. That is not our job. We are not the best people for that job (for the most part) because we concentrate on our own business. We don't have to research the knowledge that has to be known if a debate arises. We have to research solutions for our current and future projects. Sure, we know some stuff about other products, but we concentrate on what we need to know right now and in the near future. We put our hand up at a presentation and ask a question about VFP and the speakers throws back a few terms that we aren't familiar with and we look like dummies. What does that do for VFP?
>
>Isn't there some type of VFP marketing department? If there is, what exactly do they do? If there isn't, why not?
>
>Joe
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>
>
>>Hi Craig,
>>
>>Perhaps I am still tired from a two day client meeting but I really am disappointed in Robert Green's response. Assuming you have it correct, why in the world it it OUR reponsibility to call up those promotion developers. That is really attacking the symptom NOT the disease. I understand that MS is a huge company run composed of a lot of free spitits but a simple "LOOK YOU DORKS.... VISUAL STUDIO INCLUDES VFP..... DON'T FORGET IT AGAIN!!! from someone with clout should solve the problem. I thought Robert Green had that clout. The message 'Hey if you don't like the promotions call the promoters yourself' tells me he does not.
>>
>>Ken
>>
>>
>>>>I think I just might, Craig....
>>>>
>>>>You know, the real problem is that is VFP gets left outta any promotions at all, it makes it difficult to promote solutions involving it.
>>>>
>>>>
>>>
>>>I was talking to Robert Green about this last night. He had some good advice. Talk to the people that sent it out. Tell them that you're not going to hang up the mobile (or whatever it happens to be) because it is broken. If they are promoting developer tools and they don't include VFP...their promotion is broken. If you are at a presentation from a Microsoft person and they don't mention VFP with VB, VJ++, etc, politely ask them where VFP is at. Basically embarass them...but in a polite way.