>>>Slashdot is an extremely popular news portal for computing insiders, so this would be a bit of a coup and goes hand-in-hand with raising VFP's profile in a grass roots way.
>>
>>I'll gladly do this, Evan. Just give me a few minutes... (Update: done!)
>
>Could you post your submitted text here. Something is working.

Hi Evan,

Sorry but I only just noticed your reply. Here is what I submitted:

Title: A not .NET news item about, but not from Microsoft

What has been called "Microsoft's best kept secret" is about to become a lot less secret. News of an announcement by Ken Levy, Microsoft's Visual FoxPro (VFP) marketing manager, is generating shock waves among software developers accustomed to VFP's long-standing "secret weapon" status:

"the entire VFP 8.0 beta [will] be made available on the Microsoft MSDN web site as a world wide free public beta for anyone (not just VFP developers) to download and use until we release VFP 8.0 the first quarter of next year. ... The VFP 8.0 beta will be available online early next week for anyone in the world to freely download and use. ... This is the first time any version of FoxPro has been made a public beta for anyone to freely obtain.", said Levy in a message posted on 11/1/2002 to a number of closely watched FoxPro developer forums.

Among those in the know, Visual FoxPro is regarded as a database application development language without peer, and the community of VFP programmers is legendary for its devotion to the product. Microsoft acquired FoxPro in a 1992 merger with Fox Software, to the tune of $173M. Since that time, Microsoft has steadily (and quietly) added to its investment in VFP, while adapting its other offerings to exploit core technologies that originated in FoxPro.

With the onslaught of Microsoft's ubiquitous .NET campaign, the future of Visual FoxPro has been clouded. This uncertainty was emphasized by the unbundling of Visual FoxPro 7.0 from Visual Studio, Microsoft's premier suite of developer tools. The subsequent lack of VFP publicity has fueled speculation that Microsoft's commitment to VFP has waned, and perhaps they are laying the groundwork for putting it out to pasture.

Microsoft's startling decision to provide a free public download of the VFP 8.0 beta appears to signal a major shift in its positioning of Visual FoxPro. At the same time, the emergence of VFP from the shadows may also signal a welcome softening of Microsoft's rhetoric about .NET. While there is no question that VFP and .NET are complementary and have many aspects of interoperability, VFP is most definitely not a part of .NET, as it has been presented to date. We'll have to wait and see how Microsoft will spin this story, but in any case the secret is out!

Reference: http://foxcentral.net/

The only news coverage I've seen so far about the VFP8 beta is stuff on VFP-related sites and some general beta sites, so I wouldn't go so far as to say that any of my submissions have been effective to date. As far as attracting the interest of the broader media, I think the most newsworthy aspect, and the point most likely to get their attention, is the lack of any PR from MS about this. As far as I can tell, no announcement was made by Microsoft to any of the major news sites. If you saw the latest MSDN Flash or Microsoft for Partners Newsletter, there has been no mention there either. An interestesting not-so-scecret secret. I wonder how long it will stay that way...

Mike