I'll jump on this...

The basic premise is simple. THe expectation in the expenditure of marketing dollars is a payback by way of sales. It does not make sense, from a business standpoint, to market somebody else's product and not get a direct payback.

can you construct an argument that an indirect payback will result? I suppose you could. But that is very unsure at best. Further, MS would be under no obligation to share the wealth.

Suffice it to say that marketing efforts like this cannot be on a shoestring, they cannot be bootstrapped. Rather, they need to be funded. If this where a VC, this would be a component of the burn-rate. You pay now for a future benefit. How much? The high six-figures. Even if the former were possible, I think it would be cost-prohibitive.

< JVP >




>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.