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I feel that it matters significantly that Ken has addressed the issue of visibility inside of MS.There actually have been reports here of MS reps. at conferences/seminars acknowledging VFP. This is HUGE compared to the old standard 'do we still sell that?'. I understand that effort is on-going. And it needs to be.
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Assuming this is true, how does this impact the product or developers? In other words, as a VFP developer, how am I impacted - positively or negatively by whether a specific MS manager acknowledges the existance of VFP. Will more companys adopt VFP? I don't see one translating into the other.

FWIW, I think it is a sad day when you have to actively market a product within the organization that makes it. Given the number of posts I see regarding the number of times VFP gets omitted, I don't see a material difference in this area.

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Of course it also matter what is done to promote VFP to the outside world too. And that's where I still allow time. Not an infinite period, though.
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I think people that make these decisions are on record that you will not see a big effort made in this area. You may wish to grant more time. I would submit that you already have your answer. I gather that many are holding out for the prospect that this area will get better. The fact is, MS, as a company wants developers in .NET, not in VFP or any other tool for that matter.

Of course, if you have to spend your time marketing the product within MS, it means you have that much less time to market it outside MS.

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As regards the "summit", I can't comment at all. But I would say that at such an event I would expect a huge imbalance towards both MS and the MVP's product of association.
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My comments, as an attendee, are directed at statements and certain editorials that have been made public. From this objective observers standpoint, the character of the event, as far as VFP is concerned, has been mis-characterized. The assertion has been made that "nearly every MVP knew that Fox was just as much a player in the MS community as any other product, and left no longer the feeling that Fox is the ill-favored step child."

People are entitled to thier opinions. However, when it goes into print - in a form that has apparantly been sanctioned by MS (the author of the editoral stated he received permission from MS to print the overview) and it greatly overstates the facts, that is when the line has to be drawn. I saw the editoral piece as more marketing propoganda than anything.

As far as Fox getting more respect than in days past, I would say that is true. On a scale of 1 to 10, where Fox used to get zero respect, maybe Fox received got a few more points of respect ( 2 or 3). I suspect that much of this is the result of everybody being in the same boat as far as .NET is concerned. I believe that if .NET was here and VS 6 remained on the same evolutionary path, that same results would not have occurred.

But, to extrapolate all of this to infer that people feel that "Fox is just as much a player as any other product..." is ridiculous. The player is VS .NET period. Everything else is trailing behind. As far as the Web Services issue is concerned, I feel that point is over-played as well. To review, VFP 6 COM Components could be exposed through the SOAP toolkit. For the record, it could be done with VB 6 and Delphi. To say that "VFP 7.0 is a solid part of the .NET tools offering..." simply overstates the point. This is nothing more than the marketing rhetoric from MS. When this words find their way into technical journals as fact, that gives one pause for concern.

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And let's face it... at best Mr. Green took input only from MVPs and what happened for/to VFP was largely determined by that group. Ken has widened the field to include the community at large. I guess it takes some time to disget/prioritize such wide input.
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And this wider field of input, assuming it really exists, will translate into what? I think you can have all of the "input" you want. The degree to which it will be acted upon remains to be seen.