Stephen the Cook wrote: > Malcolm Greene <> wrote: >> This would be a great way to retain VFP developers as Windows >> customers ... and would cost little or nothing to do so. >> >> I see no advantage to alienating such a loyal base of customers. No >> matter how much marketing money Microsoft spends, they can not buy >> the type of product loyalty and passion that the VFP community brings >> to the table. >> >> No other Microsoft product has garnered such a passionate base of >> customers. > > You have to be kidding. Each product M$ owns has a passionate base of > consumers. Word or Excel, Project. Need I go on?
That's not exactly true. On the order of 'not true at all'. <s> Data point 1: VFP beta tests generate more participants by orders of magnitude than other products. When VFP was part of Visual Studio and the beta testing was all combined into one database, 8 of the top 10 and something like 35 of the top 50 bug hunters were VFPers. Data point 2: The first few service packs for VS6 had almost no VFP updates. VFP developers had their nose out of joint until it was discovered that the VFP community had done such a good job of bug hunting during the beta that MSFT just didn't have much stuff to put into the first few service packs. Other communities didn't exhibit the same, er, passion, and thus had a LOT of fixes to jam into the first three SPs. Data point 3: At MVP summits since the mid-90s, the VFP community set themselves apart in a variety of ways. For example, in the auditorium in one of the first summits, there were, oh, maybe 150 people all spread out among the seats, a lot of loners reading through the material that was handed out at the door, a few groups of two or three, some quietly talking. And one big group of 20 or so, sitting down in front, making a big hairy ruckus, yapping with the 'softies on the stage, and just generally having a good time. Guess which product was represented by the group of 20. Data point 4: At the same MVP summits, MVPs would meet with the respective product teams. At the VFP meetings, MVPs and VFP developers asked about their spouses by name, exchanged presents, and swapped pictures of their kids. Other product teams spent most of their meeting team introducing each other, because the MVPs and developers didn't even know who each other were. Data point 5: Ricardo Wenger, after his stint as VFP lead, was asked by the triumvarate (Bill, Steve and Eric) to head up the MSFT community building effort. MSFT wanted to know why the VFP community actually had a community whereas other product groups just had a lot of participants. Data point 6: At the last MVP summit I went to, Fox MVPs all had matching t-shirts. Ahem. None of the other groups did. Although I heard that a number of them were heard muttering, "Yeah, well just wait till next year. We'll even have matching PENS!" I'm sure Ted can fill in with a number of examples that have escaped me... The Fox community _IS_ different. Whil _______________________________________________ Post Messages to: [email protected] Subscription Maintenance: http://leafe.com/mailman/listinfo/profox OT-free version of this list: http://leafe.com/mailman/listinfo/profoxtech Searchable Archive: http://leafe.com/archives/search/profox This message: http://leafe.com/archives/byMID/profox/[EMAIL PROTECTED] ** All postings, unless explicitly stated otherwise, are the opinions of the author, and do not constitute legal or medical advice. This statement is added to the messages for those lawyers who are too stupid to see the obvious.
