>The predominate message from PDC that I hear from attendees is that from MS's point of view - you need to be in the managed code sandbox. No question that some of that is marketing push. Still - most of the innovations are in the managed code space. That said, it seems 100% irreconcilable to me that on one hand - Fox could still be talked about in a positive light and on the other hand - customers are told in effect - they need to be going toward managed code.
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>The fact that Europa will be released before Yukon is simply a matter of timing. When Yukon comes out - it is likely that as companies adopt it - the new features will be leveraged. And - as new features are leveraged - that immediately will take Fox out of the running. Today, if SQL Server is the back-end of choice - Fox can play in that sandbox 100%. Based on what you have shared here - we can no longer say that once Yukon comes out.

Customers can decide if and when they need to use .NET managed code. Customers can also decide what tools they need to use for a database backend once Yukon comes out. What I am saying is that unlike Whidbey, Europa is not targeting Yukon specific applications even though there will be a fair amount of compatibility (relative to SQL Server 2000).