David, > Sorry, you don't remember the history of the purchase of VFP > by MSFT. In the begging, there were 3 Xbase products - dBase, > FoxBASE, and Clipper. Borland bought Ashton-Tate (haven't > heard that name in a while). MSFT bought Fox Software > shortly afterwards and CA bought Clipper. We should be > grateful that the best of the bunch (IMHO) was not killed by > MSFT like the other 2 companies did with the other products.
We'll just never know if MS could have killed an independent Fox Software. And, btw, I was there - I had moved to Fox from dBase III, before MS bought Fox. > At the time I thought it was a very positive thing for the > Fox product to have the MSFT resources. Also, I remember at > that time, Dr. Dave being interviewed about the future where > you would have a single UI and the developer would get to > choose which language to best use for the purpose of the > application. Sounds like Visual Studio when it went from a > suite of products to a single product (.NET). Yes, I think > there was some political more than technical issue with VFP > not being part of the CLR. I think they just figured it was > too hard and it was too much like VB without the built in > database engine. I think it was totally political. The built-in database made Fox the clear and very obvious better choice. Who in their right mind would choose Basic over FoxPro, besides Bill Gates that is? > >MS isn't on our side, unless of course we get into their fold and > re-write for .NET. MS's latest/last move with VFP have been crafted > >for one reason: to keep the company from being sued by people like me > who bought into their sales pitch when they assimilated VFP and > >invested heavily in the FoxPro product development system - only to > discover years (and many hundreds of thousands of dollars) later > > that they had an ulterior motive all along. Had they been honest and > up-front about their plan, we wouldn't be in the position we're > >in today. > > Ask the folks who went to the DevCon in Florida (I missed it) > where MSFT hijacked the keynotes with .NET presentations... > The writings have been on the wall for a while that MSFT > focus is .NET and not VFP... I don't think that's the whole story. MS could have kept VFP going along with .NET, but as VFP grew and got better/stronger, it threatened to cut into sales of higher priced products. But I think the operative point is that MS never planned to keep VFP going from the beginning, it was a matter of how and when they would pull the plug, but not if. > >What they did, in my mind, was totally underhanded but typical behavior. > >It is with much irony that I admire Bill Gates, but I certainly do not > > like and will not accept being one of his victims. > You always have that choice... A choice between being a victim or not? That's a no-brainer. > >You want to promote MS, fine, but from my point of view you don't > belong here. > > Who elected you president? Does "from my point of view" sound presidential? > >To anyone else, my effort is to identify and capitalize on VFP's > strength in the marketplace and get around the obstacles MS has created. > >We do have options, despite what MS and their lackeys are saying. > > Agreed. We're not at odds :) Bill > David L. Crooks _______________________________________________ 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.
