Jim;

Well stated! Next I expect Bill gates to tell us how horrible we are for saying anything against Microsoft. It is due to our comments that Microsoft is doing so poorly. We should just buy everything Microsoft sells, ask no questions and say nothing.

Do you get the feeling Ken and John have one foot out the door? We can easily change tools while finding another job with the possibility of relocation is a different story. I have never before experienced representatives of any company addressing anyone in this manner and on the Internet to boot!

This tactic of Microsoft’s, having employees attack customers is something new. Perhaps they do not care but they forget we are in the United States and we do have something referred to as “Freedom of Speech”. We also have the freedom to choose. Now you have employees of one of the worlds largest corporations attacking customers and telling us how we should act! It seems like being a customer past, present or future is not enough. Now we have to create new behavioral patterns – that is to buy product and be quiet! Being quiet surely means that everything is all right – there are no problems!

Who said “Bring on the clowns”? I think they have just paid us a visit! They are Bill’s boys – you know – the ones with the little baseball beanies with the propellers on top?

Tom



>Hi JohnK,
>>Hi Mike,
>>
>>Stew, Saunders, and I are on the UT all the time and we *love* bugs. By all means, report bugs loudly and often. That's not negative at all; it helps us improve the product. Reporting reproducible bugs puts you in our pantheon of really great customers. I welcome a personal email from anyone who has a bug....I research them and respond - ask anyone who's ever sent me one.
>
>There's no doubt in my mind that the entire VFP Team *love* VFP and that some of you "love bugs".
>And I'm glad to hear you say that the people who report bugs are really your "really great customers".
>Since the bug reporting facility has no place for contact information, I guess the list of "really great customers" has one name on it - JOHN DOE.
>As for sending bugs by personal e-mail, many (most?) of us wouldn't dream of doing so. Of course its great that you handle them when you get them, but personal contact is neither the publicized practise nor a fair and reasonable method.
>
>>
>>OTOH, if you're going to make a lot of noise about the product, at least support it by upgrading when the upgrades are available. If you want to wait to upgrade for personal or business reasons, I respect that, but I ask that you hold off on damaging or derogatory comments until you've had sufficient hands-on time on the latest version to post informed comments.
>
>Damaging or derogatory comments???? Can you point to such comments [about VFP] by anyone (not just Mr. Asherman) on the UT? Now if you consider criticism of a constructive nature as "damaging or derogatory" then you will find quite a bit of it here, from many quarters. Do you think that people providing such do not also *love* VFP? Believe me, they do. They want to make it ever better and they want to help it grow.
>
>>
>>VFP7 rocks! It's so tuned towards developer productivity and so solid that I can't imagine why anyone wouldn't upgrade.
>
>Several people have offered several good reasons why they have yet to upgrade. One of them, Mr. Asherman, offered a suggestion that reviewing and rewriting the marketing material to make all of the deployed enhancements better known might make it more attractive to more people. This was after he learned of one such item here (that was not at all evident by reading the original marketing stuff) that now, 8 full months after delivery, compels him to buy the upgrade.
>
>While being your (that is MS') customers all by itself confers the 'right' to criticize, people here spend lots of time, and many of them their good money, to be a part of the "community". Personally I can't imagine a single one of them having the demise of VFP as even an iotic part of their agenda. You (that is, MS) have to make allowances for the different ways that people express themselves and pay closer attention to what is said and not how something is said.
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>>>There was never any doubt that I intended to upgrade, when it suited my schedule and best interests. I'm sure I will enjoy the new features, and I expect to continue finding VFP to be a terrific, high-quality product, which is why I became a devoted user in the first place. Still, I wouldn't be surprised if I run across a few more bugs. If I report those bugs, am I being negative? It is not a healthy attitude to look at things this way.