Michael, > With all due respect, I think you've created some imaginary > walls. Some legit perhaps, but some imaginary.
Please understand that I'm coming from a business, not a technical point of view. I'm sorting out the optimum way to operate as a VFP product maker. At center stage is the customer, who I define as the small business operator with a small office and a few machines. In this arena, VFP is King because no other product dev system can match or beat it - or, fair to say, we'd be using it. I think it's also fair to say the MS, knowing this, needed to squish VFP because it threatens sales of their expensive products. Sure, VFP can do C/S and I wouldn't dispute that. What I am arguing is that from a business/commercial standpoint, it makes more sense to create standalone and LAN applications for small business operators then C/S applications for larger customers. That is, to take advantage of VFP's strength and avoid competing in the league above VFP. I've said it before, and I stand by it: if I were in business to compete with the Big Guys, it would be from an IBM-centric position. I've spent a fortune of time in both worlds and I know that IBM territory is MS's Waterloo. Now catch me if I'm wrong, but I thought you've said you can work with VFP databases as well as other backend DBMS's. This being the case then I assume you have your product packaged in such a way that it can be distributed, installed, tested and used by any number of prospective customers without much of your personal involvement. If so, then we're really in the same position. If, on top of this, you also support C/S for customers with suitable environments, I'll call that an added bonus. I'm just arguing that C/S shouldn't be a base requirement for a commercial VFP product for this market. > > Considering complexity, as we know there are multiple choices when it > > comes to backend DBMS's. In fact, those of us who have daubled with > > just MySQL have to deal with differences between versions, not to > > mention distribution and maintenance difficulties. And then there is > > the matter of following ongoing progress in the C/S world with an > > lookout for the Next Big Thing to jump to. > > > > Using PostgreSQL or MySQL or MS-SQL Server is certainly a > choice whereby that database will be supported/available for many years to come. My > preference for MySQL is that using it will allow me an easier > transition to a web-based solution should I need to go that way in the future. > > <snipped> > > Lastly, as we've discussed off-line, marketing is a really big - and > > very expensive - deal. Put all this together and if you can deal with > > all this without missing a beat - or compromising your independence - > > then all the more power to you! :) > > > Oh yes. Marketing is expensive for sure, and really doesn't > enhance the product at all but enables you to get it into the hands of paying > customers, and that of course is a good thing. I've got a marketing strategy/plan that's taking time to implement. If encouraged, I'll talk about it more. What I'm not sure about is how many ProFox people have products to sell. Bill _______________________________________________ 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.
