>>In the 15aug97 issue of Computer Contractor (VNU Business Publication), a magazine targeted at contractors in IT industry in the UK, I came across an article "The Need For Speed", which attempted to address the speed issues in client/server enviromnents.
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>>Unfortunately the author attempted to make comparisons qualitatively using VFP (and xbase) mainly to illustrate a file-base system and a client/server based system.
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>>Terms like "The toy databass like Visual Foxpro and the Xbases are file-server based. Ture industrial-strength systems, on the other hand ..."
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>>In making its point about file-based databases, it mentioned "to find one match out of 100k orders, all 100k of them have to passed over the network from the server to the client (workstation)".
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>>The above is just an example of how non-Foxpropeople misunderstand Foxpro in particular, and the suitability rule (as in horses for courses) in general.
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>>Another issue: In an client's Oracle backend environment that I am working in at the moment, we needed to extract reports from a longchar field. I voluntered VFP has a quick and easy way to extract the reports, but the others prefer Access. Why? "Because if you are not here, nobody else knows VFP" came the reply! Sadly, I think to an extent, the client is right! At other customer sites, they usually say "Foxpro who?"
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>>The reason of the lack of publicity at MS is very clear. When you sell SQL Server, you get paid on a per client, or per seat basis. The more installations you have, the more money MS receives. Now, in the case of the developer's version of VFP, the developers buys a copy, and that is all MS is going to receive, regardless of the number of copies of applications the developer sells in the product's version-lifetime.
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>>You can argue about boosting the image of MS, profiling Win95 etc etc, but at the end of the day, it is the monies flowing into MS's corporate coffers that counts (to MS, I mean).
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>This is an interesting message. You might have some good points about the per license and the fact that in some region companies are afraid to go with VFP because they have trouble to find another VFP to come to the rescue in case the main resource is no longer available.
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>But, it's not as bad as it was possible. The recent increase of marketing from Microsoft about VFP has helped a lot. I think we can still expect more from MS and it would be interesting to see the point of view at DevCon after this recent increase of marketing.

Some of the argument is flawed however. MS also requires no additional licenses in C or BASIC.

What we as developers do, is to require companies to upgrade their OS's. 85% of which (or more?) are Windows 95/NT. And MS development platforms will (MS would never admit this to the Justice Department) create apps that will run better on MS OS's than other OS's. And non-MS development platforms will create apps that will experience the occaisional 'ghosts in the machine.' [conspiracy theory??? (sn)]. Add to this the fact that more and more web sites are going to be data driven and then companies will need MS's web server software, etc. Well...are you getting the picture yet?

There are many ways for MS to make money, Gates has only hit the tip of the iceberg. VFP may not be a front end money maker. But it helps create the larger money-making machine.