I have been reading some things on the Wiki regarding the open letter to Microsoft and will M$ market VFP (http://fox.wikis.com/wc.dll?Wiki~WillMicrosoftMarketVFP~VFP). I have an idea that I'd like to share with everyone.

Microsoft wants to put out new products to enhance their bottom line. A good case in point would be, why do we need a new word processor (Word) every 2 or so years? What has significantly changed (possible exception HTML creation) in Word since the 95 version? Not much.

That being the case, Microsoft is better off selling a VB/SQL server solution
for which they make more money. However, when products like Access can't handle the load, VB completely changes (VB.Fred) and SQL Server is perhaps cost prohibitive to a small business - VFP is a great solution. How can we make that message heard?

Would it be possible for us all to collaborate on an article comparing VFP to other languages or simply showing what it can do. For instance, it looks like VB is once again NOT going to be backward compatible. From my understanding VB.NET will not be able to use much VB6 code without significant changes. Didn't this also happen between version 3 and 4 of VB?

I have personally written applications over 15 years ago for a real estate
land title company that are still in daily operation today. This stuff was not
written in VFP, but the point is that it still works - 15 years later.
Changes in technology are a good thing, but as in this case the owner
of that company would always look at programming changes and say,
"is it going to make me any money?". If not, leave well enough
alone. Perhaps that was a bit strong, but it is a true story.

As you well know, VFP is compatable back to the FoxBASE days. That is
a great thing in my opinion. VFP unlike other languages always seems to
protect the past and allows for the inclusion of new technologies. I'm sure
you are aware that while VFP is an OOP language that a significant percentage
of VFP developers are using it as it were FPW. They have the option to
move on and improve or continue to be productive using dated techniques.

Guess my point on this whole matter, is if Microsoft does not want to market
and extol the virtues of VFP, perhaps a well written article in a popular
computer magazine along these lines would stir up some interest.

Nothing runs like a Fox - backwards and forward...