>>With all the talk about marketing and the future of VFP, I can't help but wonder if there is more that we can do as a community. I personally agree with the decision to remove VFP from VS.NET, and I look forward to the marketing efforts that MS will put into the product. However, will it be enough? Will we see the same philosophy, such as: "Is your application too big for Access and too small for SQL Server? As long as it doesn't compete with our other major products, then maybe, just maybe, Visual FoxPro is the right choice for you." Wouldn't we rather see statements like: "Visual FoxPro does it all!", "Lightning fast speed from the desktop to the web", "FoxPro Rocks!". Sure this stuff is a little over the top, but that's what advertising is about, isn't it? Other vendors think they have the best damn product on the planet, and they're not afraid to say it.
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>>It seems is thought MS is limited in what they can or will say about FoxPro. Has a marketing coalition been seriously considered before? Would the various VFP vendors contribute to a FoxPro marketing campaign? It seems in their best interests to do so. Would MS allow or even contribute to the campaign? Would one of the major forums or user groups be willing to organize the effort? Certainly, this is not a new idea, but perhaps one whose time has come. Your thoughts on the feasibility of this are appreciated.
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>I think a vendor-funded marketing campaign is a little over the top. All the brouhaha going about on the wiki about marketing VFP prompted Steven Black to chime in and I believe his idea was right on target.
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>The idea consists of VFP developers writing great articles and submitting them to usually non-VFP magazines and/or web sites. To this I would add, as well as to the regular VFP mags & sites that cater to other language developers, like CoDe & maybe FoxTalk.
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>For this idea to work I think the articles would need to be about how VFP interoperates with other products and technologies, MS or otherwise. IMO a pure VFP article would not fly at all.
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>There is definitely an opportunity now with the news that VFP will ship before VS by more than a few months. Who knows, maybe a few managers and / or developers would be impressed by what the new VFP version can do.
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>Just my .02

Hmmmm... I hadn't heard about that idea yet, but I like it. I'll check it out at the wiki. Thanks.