>When a new version of Foxpro comes out the third party tool suppliers modify/update/improve their tools taking advantage of the new features of the new version. Also, their customer base is moving to the newest version(a certain percentage does anyhow). If we look at tools like Stonefield, Mere Mortals, Web Connection etc etc(we could list 20 or so major 3rd party tools). I'd say the improvements provided by these independent software vendors is much lower than improvements made for versions 5 and 6 of VFP. If the sales of VFP 8 are as good as VFP 5 and 6 then I do not believe all these companies would ignore their customer base.
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> Personally, I am happy with Codemine, Stonefield, and Web Connection. I use these products every week. However, the improvements made due to VFP 8's release are minimal. All of these products have a significant customer base. I believe these various independent third party VFP add on tool vendors are NOT ignoring their customers. Their customer base is not upgrading to VFP 8.
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> Add that up with Macneish's comments about the bottom dropping out of the add on tools market, and many other comments made by top vfp guys and I'd say VFP 8 is not selling as well as VFP 5 or 6.

3rd party tools are no longer necessarily a relevant indicator of VFP sales. For example, a new project I am developing in VFP8 will not be using SDT. This is the first project where I do not need SDT. Why? Because the project database is completely in Oracle, I am using the CursorAdapter because I no longer have a need for Remote Views where I used SDT to manage.

There are other reasons VFP 3rd party tools and frameworks sales are declining. For one, VFP is adding more to the product that previously was handled by these tools. Another, is VFP has been around for 10[?] years now and developers have enough experience with the language that 3rd party frameworks are becoming less and less relevant to them. Why has McNeish developed a .NET framework? Partly because the VFP framework sales have bottomed out, but also because .NET is new and developers are trying to catch up as quickly as possible. So the ROI of buying his .NET framework is worth it. As .NET matures and developers become more experienced, I suspect the sales of his .NET framework will bottom out as well. Knowing Kevin, he will always be on top of the next emerging technology and continue to come up with new ideas and products.