>>As I said on the fox.wikis, having VFP in VS gave it creditability. If VFP is not included with VS.NET then where is the creditability?
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>Did the credibility come from just being in the box, or did it come from the capabilities of the product (ability to do client/server, ability to build COM DLLs and manage them with MTS/COM+)? And is there still credibility in VS.NET when VFP is not a .NET language?
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>>Some heavy-duty press and marketing would have happen to demonstrate that VFP is still serious developer tool from MSFT. Is that going to happen?
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>To be perfectly honest with you, our ability to do that is greater if VFP is not in the VS box. If VFP is in VS, it has to have a VS story. In 6.0 that meant middle tier and DNA. In VS.NET that means the next generation of Web apps. If VFP is not in VS, then we can have our own story, which means we can go back to bragging about the things that Fox does best.
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>Robert

Wow! I really didn't expect to hear these arguments coming from Microsoft. I figure MS sells upwards of 200,000 full copies of VS just to VFP developers. Of course, if you keep the pricing the same, you can expect that to keep happening. I appreciate your objective look at this issue. I do have a few questions:

Does it cost us anything to stay in the VS box? If so, what is that? I can't name any MS products that aren't in one of the various suites.

I like the idea of VFP having its own story. Can we realistically expect MS to put any marketing muscle behind VFP? The lack of significant marketing in the past creates doubt that this would happen.

Answers to these questions would affect my personal opinion on the matter. Thanks again for your time.