>> A few weeks ago, this was not the case and only available to restricted beta testers and DevCon attendees. Whilst it is terrific news that the public beta is going ahead, just what was the cause of the change of decision? I mean, this was a massive change of heart. I am interested to know, if possible, what prompted this - just out of interest. <<

Great question. So the story is, I got three Microsoft people in a room with me to talk about who we give the VFP 8.0 beta CDs to (what conferences, etc.), basically the criteria. Those people where Ricardo Wenger, Alan Griver, and Robert Green. We all wanted to agree on the criteria of who should receive the VFP 8.0 beta CDs and where to draw the line and say no.

I explained that the demand for the VFP 8.0 beta is very high among VFP developers (more than any previous beta), MSDN Subscription customers deserve access to the beta since they do get public betas in their subscriptions, and that making a public beta helps promote adoptions and future sale. They all agreed unanomously that this is a great thing to do for VFP 8.0 as long as I could get it done quickly and at a very low cost to our VFP team resources who are all very busy working on VFP 8.0. I was able to do this in a relatively short time succesfully and here we are.

I was told the download should be available on Monday (Wed at the latest if delays occur unforseen in the MSDN web site team), and I am travelling to Frankfurt on Monday to arrive early Tuesday morning (9 hours ahead of Seattle PST time) and I expect to post a news item with a link on FoxCentral.net then and have the UT news, etc. So early Tuesday morning is probably realistic as to when the links will be posted as news items.

>> By the way, I am looking forward to meeting you in Frankfurt next week! <<

Looking forward to meeting you in Frankfurt also. This will be my 5th time speaking at the VFP conference there.