Hi David & Everyone,
  I said that I had been watching for a feature on the new FPW 5.0 in
MSDN. Well I did not miss it after all, they waited until the March 1997
issue when they unveiled the rest of the Visual Suite as well. In talking
with them I learned that it was all part of a big mistake. The order came
from above to do one big media campaign for all the VisSuite products at
once. They overlooked the fact that FP5 was being released 6 or 8 months
earlier. That is a big part of why We did not see much coverage in the
Press around the time it shipped.
  I just received a very nice letter of clarification from a Lady at Ms.
about the phased sale of the Fortran products to DEC. Turns out that the
fee for support is not being discontinued until April 1998. So the CFO's
lust to trim every once of fat from the Tools Group, should be satiated
for some time yet to come.
  Microsoft seems very concerned about the value of Good Will, they must
not want any of the Fortran customers unhappy about the transition. Like
maybe they want them to come back and buy the Visual Studio or at least
VC++ when they give up on Fortran. If they are this worried about a tiny
group of Fortan Customers, I am encouraged, realizing they then would
not even consider messing with a much larger group of ferociously loyal
FoxPro Users & Developers!
  One more bit of good news, I had noted MASM was not at SDev at all. I
checked into it and found it is still being sold & supported for the
"foreseeable future". It is not being advertised and all development work
stopped over a year ago. I think this is the best possible outcome. It
is not competing for resources with FP, but you can still get the final
MASM 6.11A version. This is important if you need to build a FoxPro
Library file with every bit of speed or need the Windows/Protected Mode
capabilities.
                                        It just keeps gettin better,
                                        den
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