>Hi Nancy:
>
>>>What would you most like to see? What do you think would most impress your >>clients? Your boss?
>
>Validation! I'd like to see MS position VFP as the right tool for some sort of work. Whether it be desktop apps or web services, it needs to differentiated from other products if they expect re-gain lost market share.
>
>Most people I run into think VFP is either a hold over from the DOS days or they say "Why use VFP when there is VB or Access?". Now they will be saying the samething about .NET because you can build desktops apps with it as well.

Hi, Charlie-

Sorry about the delay. I don't check UT very often :-(

I hear you on this. Indeed, perhaps clearly defining what that right job is in a way the MS *can* promote it is an intersting question. I think that Access is really being relegated to a position of being the design frontend for creating MSDE backends. Would you agree? I might be seriously off on this opinion. IAC, I see Access as less of a competitor now than ever before. Wow, could I ever be wrong on this. :)

As for DotNet doing desktop apps. Yes, it can, and rather splendidly, too. But there's a lot of overhead, IMO. There's going to be the learning curve (I don't quite agree with the marketing line that DotNet makes things easier faster, etc.) Then there's the pieces you have to put together. No integrated DE. I know a lot of people here are using SQL Server/Oracle/MSDE backends, and I think that's great, but it's hard to pass up a tool that has everything you need in one place with no redistribution licensing costs. So, I kinda think of VFP as bread-and-butter (with no shame). There's some really lucrative work in the top, say, 5% of big, high profile projects--and that's not where we'll ever be strong. But then, going down the pyramid, we see a wider base of less $$$ projects, but more numerous, projects.

The speed of the DE and inexpensiveness of VFP, as well as it's just plain solid as a rock design are the highlights for me. The bits I use to promote VFP. What are your thoughts?