>I agree that it could be done. Not sure that anyone would make the investment.
>
>Hello, Peter Robinson,
>
>VFP has an installed base of what?, 50,000. At $300/year that's $15 million. Do you think someone would like a built-in market with that much potential?

Hello, James.

Sidestepping the speculation on whether it would happen, I think it's interesting to speculate on what it might mean if someone else did market a FoxPro clone.

What's the worst thing about the VFP data engine? In my book, it's the fact that data, particularly memo fields and index files, can become corrupted through normal usage. This is what forced Rick Strahl to move the SurplusDirect web server from the VFP data engine to a SQL Server backend which, he reports, is only half as fast.

Why is VFP less than 100% reliable about data storage? I used DataFlex for many years and though it wasn't 100%, I would say it was about 99.9999% reliable. I would go for years at sites without needing to rebuild index files. And I might see one corrupted data record out of 100,000, once in a year.

Will MS bother to make the VFP data engine 100% reliable? No way, why should they? They would much rather sell you SQL Server.

But a new vendor might want to.

Just speculation, but it's speculation about a silver lining rather than doom and gloom.

Peter

And here is one more possibility: if MS did decide to drop VFP, the DOJ might make a strong suggestion that they sell it rather than canning it.