... reasonable but again I cannot believe that keeping a few hundred thousand VFP coders off Linux is a major concern for MS. They have .Net to keep coders happy.
Recall WINE and VFP Under Linux.
Recall WINEX pushing VFP GUIs to "dumb" terminals.
Recall the MS fears that mushroomed when Whil was making his WINE tour (MS lawyers called him and evrything!)
Recall the re-wording of the EULA - (i think it was changed - at least re-examined!)

MS was (and still is) scared to death about VFP developers and linux. MS could of done what borland did: Borland had a UNIX dBase and a Windows dbase. Object code running under windows could be relinked (without any changes) to a UNIX EXE!

Imagine how much work we'd have if we could move to our apps to Linux! SOme of us might have become wealthy! I am sure the psuedo VFP-why-don't-you-buy-net-seminars-from-me crowd were wetting their panties when Whil announced his wine tour!

Follow the money that your not earning and you'll see it going into the accounts of the "ear whisperers".

>
>I think VFP is being enhanced and improved because there are (a) probably more VFP developers and VFP applications out there than we realize, (b) because it still serves an important market segment of smaller companies that do not need client-server, (c) becuase it probably does not cost MS that much to keep it going in respect to the revenue generated, and (d) because we love MS so much for this great dev tool and would hate them forever if they dropped it.
>
>btw I love VFP9 - Viva VFP!
>
>
>>SNIP
>>>
>>>Can I suggest another reason why DBF died? Because there's no money to make with it. I mean I buy VFP and that's it. MS makes no money after that. I do as many apps as I please and MS receives nothing from that.
>>
>>Well, not quite. They surely do not make nearly as much money as they would from SQL Server solutions, but they at least get the Windows OS sale and probably a MS Word or Office suite sale. And, much more important now than 5 years ago, they keep LINUX out of the shop.
>>>
>>>So the solution to this economic mess. Trash the DBF model as fast and as often as possible and push client-server processing. The result. MS sells client-server licenses. Oh yeah I almost forgot. MSDE is free. Is it really?
>>>
>>
>>This surely has been the "strategy", and may still be. But one hopes that the LINUX fear and some realization that there are hundreds of thousands of small shops contributing license fees to MS is now taken into account.
>>Of course all those non-Microsoft marketeers (we have several here) would not be a party to that part of the equation.