>Hi Evan ----
>
>>I have seen evidence that this is 10 to one. 5,000,000 to 500,000. This is from reading various white papers on the MS site. Of course... I don't have the links. Perhaps this ratio isn't so bad. VFP is a specialty tool for databases while VB is touted as being a jack-of-all-trades.
>
>I think the ratio is somewhat irrelevent. How many good VisualInterDev or VJ++ developers are there? At least one of these groups probably has fewer developers than VFP yet MS markets the hell out of them because they are specialized and don't threaten VB (much).
>
>I think that the main concern on MS part is marketshare fraticide. Meaning, we know that VFP is a great general-purpose business development language, right?
>
>If MS pushed VFP with that in mind, where would the converts come from? From VB or potential VB developers and MS gains --nothing--. Mind you, I'm only playing devil's advocate.


What I don't get is what they lose? Sure if they spend millions of dollars just to convert VB people to VFP people they lose some money. But there's many ways they could push VFP with little or no money. They're not losing customers if VB people go to VFP. And they may gain some in the process.

-Michelle