I think this is a simple of case of two things, some over expectations on your part combined with tying in unrelated circumstances here on the UT coming to incorrect conclusions. My job at Microsoft, which I do with a passion, is to market Visual FoxPro to the best of my ability both internal and external to Microsoft. First, myself, the Fox team, and Microsoft have nothing to do with discussions online here on the UT. There are many many thousands of VFP developers world wide, and what you are referring to here on the UT which you call "disenfranchise" is referring to about a dozen or so individuals discussing their point of view with no input from or with Microsoft. The UT is not owned or controlled by Microsoft in any way nor are the messages posted by non-Microsoft employees. I don't get involved with what anyone including John Petersen post here on the UT.

When you say "Ken promises the world", I am not sure what you are referring to. When I said the best is yet to come, that referred to specific perception improvements around VFP within and external to MS, and of course it referred to VFP 7.0 at that time which was just released and was the best version of VFP so far (Toledo will be even better of course). If you want, review the keynote session from DevCon last September at http://msdn.microsoft.com/vfoxpro and see what was promised. If you have specific expectations, please let me know and I will try to clarify or confirm them. Some parts of the FoxPro home page on MSDN are outdated but mostly in areas not being focused on, and soon the entire site will be updated including more new content, the efforts have already started within Microsoft.

I asked some VFP developers who were in the process of "learning and using" .NET (not moving to .NET) if they would be using VB .NET or C# as that language. I am not trying to sell VB, but I am interesting in selling MSDN subscriptions which include VS .NET and VFP to VFP developers, and using ASP.NET with VFP offers great advantages to VFP developers and helping them success is the right thing to do.

I see no break up in the VFP community. There are thousands of people in the FoxPro community and many times more people world wide who use VFP who are not part of the active community. You should not use a dozen or so active people here on the discussion board as any measure of state of mind or satisfaction. John Koziol is a valuable asset to the Fox team at Microsoft helping to make sure VFP is a quality product on our great and hard working test team. John feels very passionate about both the VFP product and the VFP community just as I do. John Koziol felt like posting a message to John Petersen simply asking about the source of some numbers posted about active community members, nothing more. The result of the thread may not have been what John Koziol wanted, and I simply told him that engaging in debates online serves no real purpose for our efforts. When you say John Petersen spoke to me about having John Koziol backing off from debates, that refers to many months ago, late last year I believe. John Koziol does not report to me, I am not his manager, he is in the VFP test team group. All of us at Microsoft care greatly about community efforts, and many of us including John Koziol and others actually come here on the UT and other places online in our free time, it is not part of our core job description or goals. We do so because we are about and love the VFP product and community. You should also know that John Koziol is a good friend of mine and I fully support him in all his efforts in trying to do good things for the community which he does besides working hard on Toledo. He can get passionate and want to debate at times, and that is when I advise, not command, him to debate less and help others more with that time. There is nothing going on here on the UT that negatively affects any members of the Fox team, their motivation, etc. The Fox team is working extremely hard on Toledo while I am and continue to do things around VFP 7.0 while also now working on planning for Toledo marketing, which will be more than what was done for VFP 7.0 by the way.

The last thing that I want is for Fox developers to break up in any way, and there is no actions on my part nor anyone at Microsoft who wants that, and there is no facts to point to any type of misunderstanding like that other than your message here. I don't believe there is any significant divide in the FoxPro community. In fact, I feel confident in saying that the Fox community is as strong if not stronger than any time in the past several years. and the UT here is more active with a wider range of topics now than it was last May, by far.

I personally don't see a VFP world and a .NET world as two different worlds. I see more and more VFP developers using VFP with .NET now and over time, especially ASP.NET with VFP (via COM, VFP OLE DB provider, XML Web services, etc.), and that MSDN subscriptions is a great value in obtaining VS. NET, VFP, VS6, Windows, and more. CoDe magazine is a great magazine, lots of great articles for VFP developers and others. I write a column for FoxPro Advisor magazine every month and I work closely with all VFP events and many user groups as I can. The demand from VFP developers to at least learn and evaluate .NET is very high, and helping them is in Microsoft's interest, but the idea of myself or anyone at Microsoft trying to move or migrate VFP developers away from VFP to .NET is completely false. That not only comes from the Fox team alone, but Microsoft executives as well. I will continue to market VFP, and include information about MSDN subscriptions and how VS .NET works well with VFP.

I have used FoxPro since 1986, my entire adult life, and I took this job because I wanted to do as much as possible for VFP and the VFP community. I use to go into EggHead stores and complain to the store manager when they had dBase IV on the shelf but not FoxPro, and I have maintained that attitude and passionate for VFP and will continue to do so. I joined Microsoft in this position as product manager after VFP 7.0 had been completed and there wasn't a formal launch with as big of results as there could have been, but when Toledo is released it will be a much better product and have more noticeable marketing efforts than occurred with VFP 7.0. Rather than questioning your motives or conclusions in your message, I simply want to respond and clarify as directly and honestly as I can.