Mike;

Only Ken can qualify what he said. However we can all read into his words whatever we wish.

As Ken has pointed out the amount of marketing money available to promote a Microsoft product is dependent upon a number of factors – sales being one of them. That makes good business sense. Would it be wise for Microsoft to drop marketing of all its products and concentrate on VFP? What I am trying to express is there is a need to be realistic. Understand reality – in this case it seems clear.

Ken has done a great deal to market and promote VFP which is more than visible to the community. He has even offered to assist those of us who are trying to convince our corporations that VFP is a tool that should be considered for development of software applications. He made such an offer to me. I take that as a personal commitment as my corporation is anti VFP. I work for a large corporation that has a negative position towards VFP. That corporation is NUMMI (Toyota/General Motors) in Fremont, California – the only auto manufacturer west of the Rockies. We have 80 developers and over 50 servers running production/administration.

In my opinion there is so much damage that has been done to the reputation of VFP over the last seven years that it will be more than difficult to resolve all the outstanding issues. I base this upon my experience as a consultant and full time employee in the San Francisco Bay Area. We can take those issues one at a time and attempt to do our best to improve corporate attitudes towards VFP. It is not an easy job and in reality the job has just begun.

We have many camps amongst our VFP forum members. Some have his/her head in the sand and they are happy. That is great! Others are screaming the end is here or near. That may be true I do not have a crystal ball. I use many programming tools besides VFP and support my family doing so. I happen to be one of those who looks at business, market, technology and other factors and makes decisions for myself. So far I have made the correct decisions as I have gotten this far in life. Others may not agree with my decisions but they are not me. I do not have to please anyone other than my family and myself.

I use the tool I am told to use and get paid well. I now have a project in Delphi, a tool I have never used. It is nice to be paid to learn. That is how I have learned several languages including VB. I have taught myself more than six programming languages and used them professionally. Dot NET is next on my list.

Perhaps because I use many programming tools I do not worry about the future of VFP. I know if I come to work tomorrow and am told we are using a different tool it will not bother me. However, the most complex programs I have created have been in VFP and I happen to love the tool. Used with a commercial application framework allows complex business solutions to be created in less time than any other programming tool or platform.

Perhaps it is time to promote VFP rather then criticize each word someone uses and make a volume out of what that word means to you, the world and the future. We are all entitled to our opinions and some of us are more vocal than others. I prefer to be rational and not pound people into the ground. Everyone has his/her own approach so I am expressing mine.

Tom