On Sept 10th I received an email (see message below dashed line) from the co-chairman of Alpha. Probably quite a few of you got the same email.

Here are some excerpts from a recent ComputerWorld article about Alpha 5 taking on Microsoft in the desktop database arena:

  Some observers like Alpha's chances to make some headway against Microsoft, 
  given   the less than rave reviews many users give Access. 


  This is not so much an issue of a little company going up against a bigger 
  company. More importantly, Microsoft has very limited database experience outside
  of Access. There are just thousands of details you have to get right in designing 
  a database, and Microsoft started off by getting almost none of them right," said 
  Jeff Tarter, editor of "The SoftLetter," an industry newsletter in Watertown, 
  Mass. 


Probably just a pipe dream that Microsoft would counter the Alpha 5 campaign with one featuring VFP but one can always hope...

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I notice that you are a Foxpro Expert Tom

We make a database product called Alpha Five

We have just released version 5 after 3 years of work and I would like to get your feedback (btw, its native file format is the .dbf format)



I very much look forward to hearing from you

Sincerely

Richard Rabins
Alpha Software Inc