Thank you very much for this, Franco...

We had all been assured that 'VFP sales are counted in the sales of MSDN'.

While this **may** be accurate at some level, it is obviously not correct to the 'local' level and this fact clearly has had a negative impact on VFP (and its promotion) in those locales!!!

Possibly an accurate accounting of VFP sales included in MSDN sales would have resulted in continuation of localized versions being available!

Possibly an accurate accounting of VFP sales included in MSDN sales would have resulted in local MS web sites continuing to mention VFP as a still-developed product!

Possibly an accurate accounting of VFP sales included in MSDN sales would have resulted in VFP being more accepted in such locales as a viable development tool.

Obviously MS is intent on pushing .NET to the max, but why it feels that hiding VFP helps this cause is well beyond my conprehension BUT it does inform my mind that there must be something about VFP that the .NET evangelists consider to be dangerous to their future!

Merry Christmas to you!
Jim

>>As I said, the local Microsoft offices in Italy control the content of their own web site and how they spend their time and resources, and it is almost always based on sales in their region. I will send them another reminder as I have with a few other countries, but one thing that might help is if you contact the local Microsoft offices in Italy and talk to them about it directly, and get other VFP developers in Italy to do the same.
>
>I have sent an e-mail to the local "write-as" address.
>I can understand that you have no control on the local web sites, and this sound reasonable, but keep in mind:
>
>1) many developers (as me) has a MSDN subscription, last VFP I bought was VFP5.
>VFP is not like Office where end user buy the box, ins't it?
>So, it's not so easy know how much money Microsoft get from a product if it's included in a such subscription
>2) In any case, on the VFP italian web site MS is promoting .NET 2003, not VFP8, what do you think about this?
>I believe that that one can interest to you.
>
>How can VFP sales increase if all over the world on localized VFP web site MS promote .NET?
>How much is frustrating to work in a similar atmosphere for you and your team....and for we vfp developers?
>My thought is that something wrong is happening on VFP.
>I had used vfp since the 2.5 version and for years I have ignored rumors about the kill of VFP, but what is happening at MS now?
>VFP is a great tool, have a great technology inside, why not merge the best of VFP with the best of .net?
>Yesterday I have discovered that there is also Cobol.Net which let you create asp.net web sites, why keep a so powerful tool like VFP only for build desktop application?
>I do not understand why vfp it comes more and more left alone as the time goes.
>
>By the way, I'm going on holiday, so merry Christmas to you, your family and the VFP team! :)
>
>Franco