>I've used Delphi (remember Turbo Pascal ?), VB, C++, Access, Clipper, blah, blah ... Delphi (and many of Borland's products) are vastly superior to anything MS, can and will produce ... which includes VFP. I despise MS for its mediocrity.

dBase V and VII were powerful and produced native exes. Not everything worked like it should have - but they were more "powerful" than VFP. The competition was good - too bad the other players have been crowded out.

I had those "we're a MS shop" experiences in the early 90's. A few company paid buffets in Redmond seemed to turn everyone into a Stepford geek:-)