Microsoft announced in late February that the next version of Visual FoxPro (Visual FoxPro 7.0) will ship separately from the next version of Visual Studio. According to Ricardo Wenger, this decision was made because "Our customers have told us that they want all the new features we have been working on and we want to ship this product as soon as we can." 

Visual FoxPro 7.0 will ship separately and as a part of MSDN Subscription Services. Ricardo indicates "Visual FoxPro will be ready to ship late this Spring." Since then, the VFP DevConnections conference in May has been announced as the site for the official launch for Visual FoxPro 7.0. The VFP DevConnections conference is co-chaired by our own president emeritus, Barry Lee. 

The next version of Visual FoxPro will also not be a part of .NET. There has been a lot of discussions about this, especially on the Universal Thread (http://www.universalthread) and on the Fox Wiki Forum (http://fox.wikis.com/wc.dll?Wiki~ShouldVFPBeInVSDotNet~VFP). In fact, Robert Green posted messages on the Universal Thread and elsewhere asking for the thoughts and opinions of the developers. Needless to say, this has prompted a tremendous response and discussion on the matter. When the official announcement was made later, most people were satisfied that the decision was made with appropriate forethought. 

How will VFP 7.0 be marketed outside of .NET? Robert Green posted the following on the Universal Thread: "To be perfectly honest with you, our ability to do that (market VFP on its strengths) is greater if VFP is not in the VS box. If VFP is in VS, it has to have a VS story. In 6.0 that meant middle tier and DNA. In VS.NET that means the next generation of Web apps. If VFP is not in VS, then we can have our own story, which means we can go back to bragging about the things that Fox does best." 

Will the VFP 7.0 message get lost from the .NET marketing hype? As Robert Green indicates, VFP could very well get lost if VFP 7.0 stayed in the Visual Studio package. Separate from Visual Studio/.NET, however, Visual FoxPro will reestablish an identity in the marketplace. How effective or thorough of an identity for Visual FoxPro remains to be seen. 

Also, there's no guarantee that .NET will be accepted in the marketplace. The .NET tools and framework is a major change for MSFT and will take years to materialize. Developers will need to be trained and there has to be a compelling reason to move to the new platform. Just because Microsoft says so isn't a good enough reason to move. There has to be tangible benefits for the developer. To fully realize these benefits, the OS will need to be updated to support all of the .NET services. The point here is that it will take a lot of patience and time for all the pieces to be put in place. Security needs to be addressed, for instance. 

Also, the goal if .NET could change. Note that MSN was reinvented three or four times before it seemed to reach full acceptance. Microsoft Office was gone through several iterations, each time tightening integration among the individual products. 

It is clear that MSFT will be behind .NET for the long haul. In that time, the message could change. Perhaps Visual Foxpro will fit into that vision down the road, maybe not. In the short term, Visual FoxPro has been separated from the .NET architecture.