Using your same reasoning, MS should dump Works. I also see that you can still buy MASM.


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>I'm delighted to hear that Ken has been making serious inroads, and I'm sure that you and David are in a better position to judge that than I am.
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>What serous inroads have been made?
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>It's clear that some amount of internal "re-education" will be essential to achieving the sort of externally visible results we would like to see.
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>Is it clear? When it comes to the focus on development tools at MS, it is dotNET, period. To think that any serious effort is going on that targets VFP outside the current user base is simply not seeing reality.
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>>I think one needs to put things in proper perspective, though.
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>This much is true...
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>Your paraphrase of Ken's statement as "we may not get there" is a rather optimistic rewording of what he actually said, and which I truly believe to have been an absolutely honest statement of his opinion:>This is not likely to ever change significantly
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>Ken himself has stated that the external perceptions of VFP by the IT world is not likely to ever change significantly. There you have it, from the horses mouth.
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>Someone needed to highlight this statement in bright yellow marker, and that's what I have done.
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>I have only been saying this for 3 years...< s >..
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>Any effort at a broad re-education of Microsoft reps will be stopped cold by the failure to correct the blatantly contradictory omissions of VFP from Microsoft's PR newsletters. As for marketing to the world at large, those omissions say it all.
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>You had a nice video made by Steve Ballmer. You had another decent video from Craig Symonds. The issue you need to understand is that these videos are targeted at the current VFP developer. MS does not have an interest in growing the number of VFP developers or promoting VFP over dotNET.
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>They utterly destroy VFP's credibility, rendering all other marketing efforts ineffective.
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>There is only 1 credible development tool message from Microsoft, and that is dotNET.
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>Ken receives a salary to make his best efforts despite being reduced to 10% effectiveness. There is no reason why we, Microsoft's customers, should quietly accept these gross inefficiencies.
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>Ken's job is to ensure the VFP customer is satisfied...period. IT is not to promote VFP to the outside world, counter to the marketing efforts of dotNET. Interesting observation: not a day goes by where I don't see a national TV add on .NET. Even if Ken could have his own way, do you think he has a budget to counter act that???
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>Maybe you and some of the other highly successful luminaries of the VFP community are content to operate under such constraints, but I think you are a bit out of touch with the "average joe".
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>I will agree with you here. There are many VFP "gurus" who are seriously out of touch. To be fair, there are many who have quitely moved on. Having the guru label bestowed on me, I will tell you that I use VFP for all it is worth today and am ramping up on dotNET. At the same time, I feel the need to provide balance to what I have seen as a very one sided argument.
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>From my standpoint it is unacceptable to simply sit back quietly and accept that maybe, but probably not, Microsoft will end this abuse in, say, 2004. Tell that to the guy who's riding out the present employment crisis, hanging on for dear life hoping in the next few months he'll find a job where he can apply the skills he's invested ten years to develop.
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>That is the developer's problem, trying to wring out the last bit of value from the skills he has invested in for 10 years. If the developer pigeonholed himself into the Fox Box and has been an ostrich of sorts, then he has not listed to people like myself who have been preaching and evangilizing methods for broadening one's skillset. If this is your predicament, then Ken is not where you should lay blame for your lot in life. How you manage your career, your intellectual captial is up to you.
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>As a Microsoft shareholder, I don't accept your argument either. There is no valid business argument for failing to allow VFP to be marketed effectively. Those bogus arguments were obliterated without even breaking a sweat. Now we hear speculation about how the next version of VFP might be positioned as a strategic fit with SQL Sever (nothing official, of course). Excuse me, but doesn't VFP already have a pretty good story to tell about its fit with SQL Server? The problem isn't that VFP doesn't have a compelling story to tell, it's that Microsoft is hell-bent on holding it back.
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>Actually, as a shareholder, it is not in your interest to invest as much a $1 on VFP marketing. Whether you spend 1 or a million dollars, it won't make a difference to increasing shareholder value. If anything, it will decrease shareholder value.
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>>Time and again, people bring up the need to justify "marketing investment" or costly advertising campaigns. These arguments entirely miss the point, because my thesis is and always has been that what's missing is the stuff that costs Microsoft nothing. There is no need for a complex, speculative cost/benefit analysis here. It is obvious and incontrovertable that, as a stockholder, I would benefit from the sales of product for which a substantial investment has already been made. If sales of VFP are actually detrimental to Microsoft, which I don't believe for one second, then it should be terminated (i.e. sold off, or spun off). There is no legitimate middle ground where it is acceptable to play the sort of games that Microsoft appears to be playing with VFP.
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>So you are suggesting that MS promote VFP on an equal or comprable basis to dotNET??? That would be tantamount to MS working against itself.
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>Something's rotten in Denmark, Steve, and the FoxPro community has become so accustomed to the stench that we seem to have forgotten about it or lost sight of its significance. Rest assured that no one outside the FoxPro community is unaware of this problem, if they've even heard of VFP. Have you ever worked with fish emulsion? It's hard to imagine anyone ever getting used to the stuff, but it sure is great for organic gardening. Just don't forget to wash your hands and take a shower before plying your wares at the big city market.
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>Threre is nothing *rotten* Mike. It is a matter of a company going down the road that VFP does not happen to reside. If you were a DOS die hard, would you make the same argument about Windows? Tools evolve and grow. If you loved a typewritter, are you po'd that typewriters are not being innovated anymore? The fact is, dotNET in many ways, is not that big of a leap for the Fox developer. In other ways, it is a big leap for everybody.
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>It sounds to me that you are whining and complaining because you can't have the status quo. If you wanted that, you should dig holes.