>I must be speaking for myself. I was gathering from the thread that the group was looking for possible solutions as to why attendance would be down or not increasing. I added in my 2 cents that I couldn't go because last Sunday was Father's day and that it wasn't worth it for me to spend a day flying, 2 days at an annual convention and the fourth day flying. If it was at Las Vegas like the other Advisor conventions, I would have scheduled a few vacation days.

Okay, now I see. Since I go to conferences by myself leaving my family at home, using vacation days before or after a conference didn't occur to me. That makes sense, though for myself, I'd never choose to go to Las Vegas and if I had a conference there, wouldn't consider extra time. I wouldn't have minded an extra day or two in Palm Springs.

>After reading today that the panel refused to answer questions on marketing, I'm glad I didn't attend. Besides learning the latest and greatest about the product, I want to know if I should invest a majority of my time mastering .Net instead of VFP.

The panel consisted of speakers, none of whom work for Microsoft or for Advisor. (I'm not an employee of Advisor and never have been; I do write and edit for them as a contractor.) For us to answer questions about what Microsoft is going to put into future versions of the product or how Microsoft markets the product would have been silly.

FWIW, last year, the closing session turned into a total bitch session aimed at Microsoft. There were perhaps a dozen speakers with a total hourly billing rate of several thousand dollars sitting there doing nothing while question after question asked the same thing. FWIW, the audience applauded the announcement of no marketing questions.

> If MicroSoft doesn't want to promote VFP any more, I want to know.

Then, ask them. There was a Microsoft booth in the trade show that was staffed throughout the conference. Microsoft people, including Ken Levy and Randy Brown, were available for discussion.

Tamar