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I think your analysis is one of the best I've seen posted here yet. I believe that VFP's downfall is it's failure to fit in the enterprise structure. This has nothing to do with Microsoft marketing.
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I don't totally agree with this statement. MS has always viewed VFP as being in the xBase segment. MS purchasing Fox was a hedge in the off-chance that market took off. Given VFP's ability to create COM Components - MS could have marketed/postioned VFP as an enterprise tool ala Visual Basic. MS chose not to do this. Given 20/20 hindsight - it is clear that VFP in relation to the enterprise market is like the square peg into the round hole - insofar as it relates to what I/T decision makers are using as criteria.


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VFP is a legacy language. It has served its purpose well. However, much like the technical jobs that have gone overseas, never to come back, many of the VFP jobs that have disappeared will never come back. Because when the hiring begins again, it will be for a different language.
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Here is an interesting question: I wonder how much VFP work is in India? My guess is that there is not a lot. Indeed, in the pantheon of languages, like it or not - VFP is a legacy tool in the minds of many. That is the perception and that is reality.


>I have trouble understanding the resistance here on this board.

It is actually quite simple...VFP is the langauge many here like, use, and most importantly, depend upon. The knowledge of programming of some here is so locked into VFP that to think of a world sans VFP is unthinkable. I believe that many hoped (and prayed) that things would be different. This all was foreseeable as far back as October of 1993. By 1995 - it was pretty certain where MS was going - and it was not going to be Fox.