I could not agree with you more! The promo is great but if it takes a swipe at MS it will only hurt us. People reading advertisements need to have a simple, strong messages; there is no room for innuendoes. Otherwise, it's a fine idea. I'll pitch in $25.00 if someone wanted to establish a fund for this.

>>If the bottom of the ad states that "this was paid for by VFP developers from the UT" it would go a long way in making our case public.
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>>What are your thoughts?
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>First off, I think this is a great idea in general and same goes for the website idea and Case Study rewrite idea that came up in other threads this week. But let's think about this, if we're running an ad to expand/secure the VFP job market due to lack positive reinforcement from M$ then great.... first question we should ask is "Who's our target audience?" that should be an easy answer - Corporate Business. So Mrs. or Mr. CorporateMoneySpender comes across our ad in info week and sees something of interest to a current/upcoming project and says "ahhh look at this". Great, but then they get to the bottom of the ad and see that it was paid for by developers in some tech support forum they never heard of... isn't that going to look like were just trying to cover our butts or line our pockets or some other lame marketing tactic? Haven't we seen enough lame marketing tactics in this arena already? What would that prove?
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>Now if we're running an ad to snub M$ and show them that if they wont do it we will, fine... put the "paid for by..." line at the bottom. But who's our target audience then? Seems to me the target is more along the line of making a point to M$ as opposed to expanding awareness of VFP capabilities.
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>I think we should do the VFP website, plus do the M$ case study rewrite in all VFP and put it on the new promotional website, then run the ad and load it up with all the info we know that Corporate Businesses don't (Real OOP, Real RAD, Real db engine, Shortcomings of other stuff in comparison, ect). And I would suggest that info be presented as quotes or testimonies from us, with our name & company & title (to give it the "we developers know best" feel) and drop the M$ snub "paid for by" at the bottom. After all, if it isnt explicitly stated who pays for the ad... what's the average CoporateSpender going to assume < g > It is afterall a M$ product, which if done properly gives us the big brother advantage over other products like Delphi, PB, ect.
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>Just my US$.02 worth. If it's decided to positively focus these efforts on expanding general public awareness of VFP as opposed to focusing on snubbing M$ then count me in. I would be more than glad to cough some money & put in some time for such an effort.