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I submit that MS's renewed "commitment to the community" matters. If VFP developers feel more confident about their product, they are more likely to use it for the next project.
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Since when have VFP developers not felt comfortable about the product? The VFP community is probably the most loyal, rabid community as far as their product is concerned.

Having said this, what does commitment to the community have to do with commitment to the product?


On one hand you say ...
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I don't have any delusions that VFP will receive as much attention as .Net or that the number of VFP developers will grow by leaps and bounds,
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Then you go on to say...

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but having a company stand up and say "we are committed to this product and its future" makes a difference.
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I guess my question is - "Why does it make a difference?" It sounds to me as though you heard what you wanted to hear and moved on. If anything, some of the marketing rhetoric appears as your own words here. You are not alone in this.

What does "committed to the product and its future" mean? Is it "we are committed to the product and its future, but only within certain parameters?" Or "We are committed to the product and its future as long as it reaches certain profit goals?"

What does the statement really mean? It is like the politician who says "I am committed to Education" or "I am committed to our country's future", etc, etc. In the end, it is nothing more than marketing double-speak. It sounds impressive. However, if you peel back the layers, you will find that not much is said.

I don't mean to pick on Ken or MS in particular here. EVERY company does this -whether it is a computer, car, or whatever. Watch commercials and the marketing types have riddled it with double-talk. What are these people really saying. At times, it gets quite confusing.

If it is not substantive, I don't risk my business on it...

Look, if VFP meets your business requirements, great. If that is the case, you made the right decision. If however you made the decision in the face of this "marketing" effort, I would say you made the decision for the wrong reason. Good Luck..

One one hand, the community is nice. However, when it comes to getting a job using the tool, it is not like I can show the prospective client this great community and all of a sudden, get the job using Fox. The same goes for the Ballmer Video.

Take the population of real good VFP developers for instance. The population is quite low, they are in short supply. If the most talented developers on your staff were hit by a bus tomorrow, could you replace them? As more and more developers leave a tool, it becomes more and more difficult to justify using the tool. Just a thought here to consider...

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I expect developers will have differing requirements in this regard, but my intent was to show that the new efforts were producing results, at least in my case.
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Lets hope it was the right decision...< s >...

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Of course. Many factors weigh in decisions like these. Microsoft's display of commitment to VFP is one of those factors. Wouldn't you agree that MS's commitment to .Net is a factor in your decision to accept it, or is it based purely on technical merits?
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Your not actually trying to compare MS 's commitment to .NET and VFP - are you?

As far as commitment goes, I see the community-related efforts. How this translates into the product per se, I don't see it. I have asked people to outline specifics here, but nobody has been able to do it. Here is a request - how about the ability to step through in debugging VFP-COM component code? How about integrating the Davinci tools that allow for better integration with SQL Server? You see, VFP is predicated to some extent on COM. Not nearly as much as VB, but nonetheless, COM is a focal point. Ask yourself whether COM or .NET is the future as far as MS Development tools are concerned. When you answer that question, ask yourself which one is likely to be more invested in...

As far as I am concerned, I see the technical merits of .NET. I also see the commitment that MS is putting behind the product. That is a large part of my decision to accept it...