You're a freaking idiot and, moreover, you know nothing about marketing, working within large organization, and how things really work.

See 'ya. Don't quit your day job.

**--** Steve



>>(someone moved the thread...)
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>I re-created it because I wanted the discussion to continue...
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>>JVP: Why do you think this is a brand marketing problem?
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>>What other category of marketing problem could it be?
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>Now that is flimsy logic. How about trying this: state a rule of what constitutes a brand marketing problem and apply the facts of this situation to that rule to see if it passes and leads to a reasonable conclusion.
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>>JVP: Your statement holds out the possibility that in fact, there may not be merit to this. Building a brand is a very difficult thing to do. It is also quite expensive to build the requisite mindshare. And assuming your assertion had merit, it would be expensive to address. It is unlikely that one could achieve an adaquate return on the investment.
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>>< ROFL > Agreed that mind share is an expensive proposition. But "mind share" isn't a framework for thinking about brand marketing, just as "war on terror" isn't a framework for foreign policy.
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>Creating mind-share is entirely what creating a brand is about. When you think of Cola, folks normally think of Coca-Cola. How about Johnson's Baby Powder - there is loads of brand equity in that product. It is about mind share and it is an expensive proposition.
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>Consider, for a microsecond, that getting MS Reps to stop saying "VFP is being discontinued" is almost costless in terms of marketing resource costs.
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>I don't consider this a marketing issue at all. First off, does this *really* happen that often? If you go to the Microsoft Consulting Service website, I still believe that even to this day, if you were looking for a solution provider that specialized in Fox, you could not since Fox is not one of the products in the dropdown. This may have changed, but the last time I checked, this was still the case.
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>Assuming it still does happen with great fequency, it would appear that Ken's re-education efforts are not going so well. The fact is, for years, MS has steered people toward VB. Having two products that overlap on a techncal basis the way VFP and VB do is not good. If you recall the problems Apple had when it fostered inter-product competition (Apple II, Lisa, etc..) - it damn near destroyed the company. MS made great investments in VB and leveraged the power of Fox into other products. I will also contend that MS has a great case study in how to take procedural developers and turn them into OO developers... I think there were many lessons learned there.
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>I still question just how often MS Field Reps get asked the question of Fox. The only way they would respond the way you suggest if they were asking the question. I seriously question the frequency of that...
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>This is percieved by hundreds of us as the largest single problem with VFP:
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>Assuming that problem was rectified, what makes you think the landscape would be materially altered??
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>it's sold short at source by ignorance. The cost of remedying this is one strong memo (and failing that, one strong demo) from the right person.
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>What about the Ballmer Video Steve??? You can't get much higher than that? Eric Rudder was BG's right hand technical guy. I can see the memo now:
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>From: Bill
>To: The World
>Re: Fox
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>In the future, please stop dissing Fox...
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>Bill
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>C'mon Steve... I guess you are saying that Ken's re-education efforts are not working. Well guess what, I contend that you could have all the education INSIDE MS you want. When it comes to promoting tools and educating the world OUTSIDE MS, Fox wont be part of the equation. Do you think this happens by accident???
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>And please, John, don't underestimate this: even this minuscule achievement is a multi-month proposition, because marketing implementation, however simple sounding, is never quick or easy, especially in the software field, and therein especially at Microsoft, where the ambient noise is so high.
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>Steve, for years I banged the drum louder than anybody about promoting VFP. What you are asking MS to do is send a two-pronged message:
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>"We have .NET, but if you are not comfortable with that, we have VFP.." Do you really think MS Field Reps are going to do this assuming they are allowed to? I don't think so...
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>If that doesn't seem like a sensible step in any marketing remediation program, nevermind this specific one, what does, John? Advertising?
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>Nothing does.... I say save the money and continue to support and improve VFP for those who wish to use it as their primary development tool...
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>I don't understand why we'd confuse advertizing with the sort of marketing that works, nevermind the sort of marketing VFP could best use right now. What VFP needs right now is marketing internal to Microsoft, for which nobody one earth is better suited than Ken Levy, and about which nobody knows about progress except for Ken, Ricardo, and several notable others, but that group doesn't include you or I.
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>Isn't this what Ken has been working on???? You know, to be educated, one has to first want to learn...Honestly, the only way you could pull off this education effort is to enforce some sort of punitive sanctions against those reps who don't promote Fox in a fair fashion. I don't think this is productive or likely to happen.
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>So stop asking people "show me how VFP is being advertized" and "show me evidence of the internal sell-job" to prop rickety arguments, because they don't know, and you don't know.
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>I disagree that folks don't know. There are extrinsic areas to look at. Again, look at the Microsoft Consulting Services web site. I don't think you will find Fox..
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>But I know this, so do you, and everyone should be reassured: VFP's marketing resources are not being wasted. So if there's cause to bitch, that ain't it.
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>I agree that VFP's marketing resources are not being wasted. I also agree that given the climate at MS and the MS priorities, MS has not nor has it ever been marketed to win. And if you are a student of history and folk lore in the VFP world, there is a noteable person who asked Bill Gates that very question about Fox: "When are you going to market Fox to win?" The answer given then is the same as it is today...