If MS had its way ... this database solution never would've existed....
Thus, VFP would never be 'marketed' to the outside world for one BIG reason :
It does not fit into their revenue generating 'philosophy'.

Like you I wish MS would match the technical exellence of VFP with marketing efforts, but you are right about $$ driving the bus, but there are a couple of other items that need to be understood (and there are related to $$ too) -- MS wants enterprise customers and a stand alone VFP system is not that attractive because:

1.) The dbf format will never be inherently 'secure' because of its file based mode. MS could redesign it to be more secure, but why -- they have sql*server.

2.) File-based DBMS's are potentially more succeptiple to corruption due to power outage, network crashes and the like.

Having said all that I am continuing to use VFP and will continue to do so for the foreseable future. It is a great solution for low priced applications for both small and big companies and a great tool for developing large scale applications with SQL*server and the web -- and it is really cheap!! That 'cheapness' is what makes so attractive and I guess is part of its 'problem' too -- although I believe the security and potential corruption issues are greater when it comes to what MS believes the enterprise customer needs.

Kevin