>1) by missing out on the marketing exposure that a sig of a prominent and vocal person in the dev community like Ken has. IOW the joke "gee is Fox still around..." is exactly what it can do for VFP - promotion and awareness.
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Sig lines is not a form of marketing. And FWIW, in non-Fox circles, Ken has been using his new title for quite some time.

>2) by having it in the sig for a long time and having made a lot of noise about Ken's appointment to VFP product manager and then not having it in the sig has, IMO, a negative connotation about VFP which obviously MikeH is referring to.
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Too much noise was made regarding Ken's appointment. The expectations were for the most part - unreasonable. When discussions concern strategy and the long-term focus of MS - FoxPro is not part of that conversation. And while Ken can try to be a forceful advocate of Fox - at some point - he must get in lockstep with the party line - and that line is .NET. To expect him to do anything else is unfair. No question that if any of us were in his shoes, assuming we wanted a positive career path at MS - we would do the same thing.


>3) VFP was not in VS. Then it was. And then it was taken out again and with much "fanfare" about how this would benefit VFP. Now VFP is once again "hidden" behind the VS product name while still not being part of VS. This sends a confusing message IMO.
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I won't argue that the message from MS can be interpreted as confusing. MS has never come out and use direct language - although as of late - Ken has been better at that. That said - if you take time to separate the wheat form the chaff - the message has been fairly constant: Fox is a tool that serves a dwindling market and is not part of MS's strategic focus - and as a result - is managed within a very limited set of boundaries. If you accept that message, that pretty much obviates any confusion that may exist.

< JVP >