hi Jim
i don't think these guys bought dbase. if i remember correctly, they were marketing a Portugese version of clipper in south america and have developed on from there. i would love to know who the new masters of dbase are! there is another small development house in San Diego that i have actually visited and seen what they do. they started off writing their own version of dbase (with all the same commands and functions) that was multi user a good while before dbase got there and used it to develop a medical billing program. that program has since fallen by the wayside and the technology has reverted to the actual programmers who developed the system. it is written entirely in assembler and has so many more functions and commands than any xbase i have ever seen that my jaw just hit the ground. the dot prompt accepts any mix of assembler and xbase commands as well! it is also a system where you use xbase/html. the only problem with it is that they are not presently selling it as a tool to outsiders, but perhaps with enough encouragement they would. and the nice thing is that they can conjour up new commands and functions on demand! damned nice people too! they presently use it inhouse to develop amazing ecommerce sites for heavy hitters where other tools are just too cumbersome. if you want to have a look at their stuff it is at http://www.cykic.com
and, yes - i did add my name to the letter list!
i can't remember the whole story, but MS found their tail in a crack with dbase and clipper eating up the database arena, so they bought FP from SCO who had it running on Xenix (a pc version of Unix at the time) and ported it to Dos. from there they seem to have been too busy getting their jollies from fiddling with access and sql server. access fills in the cretin database gap in the office suite and then sql server is their database mob extortion tool aimed at those who need a tool in the same vane as insisting on buying a vast phallic symbol 4x4 truck to bring the groceries home from the store. and so it would appear to my simple mind that VFP has no real slot in their view of things and they are just hoping it will quietly go away. i am sure they know what a fine tool it is, but it just doesn't have the same jingle at the cash register and that really impacts Billy's ego bigtime. and don't let anybody throw the 'good business sense' herring at you when it comes to keeping it alive for the folks that want to use it. in the vast multi billion dollar scheme of things at MS, who would even notice the price of keeping a couple of guys developing it? and i am damned sure it would keep making a modest profit too. but modest isn't what Billy wants and he can better serve his moneylust needs with access & sql server.
best - john