This is the response from Microsoft (VFP team) I did include it in my post earlier.
Robert, Thank you for your keen interest in this. If you have applications deployed at locations that are planned for migration to Vista, upgrading to VFP9 is your best short-term measure. VFP9 has stood up to our tests quite well. We will be addressing the remainder of the issues in the upcoming service pack. >Where are we meant to go now? This is always a very difficult question to answer. The VFP engine will continue to run for a long time. We have customers that are still running FoxPro for DOS. That version has not been supported for several years. End of a support cycle does not mean that the product will stop working. The engine is quite stable and has been for a long time. Most of the enhancement requests we get are in the areas that are written in XBase. We announced that these will become part of a shared-source community driven effort. I am sure these will continue to evolve. Sedna, the upcoming release, contains API that allow you to interoperate with the .NET framework as well as Vista. We are also working on guidance for working with Office 2007. These elements and a set of publications on MSDN are meant to help transition to .NET. >What language are we going to have to now develop in? This too is a difficult question to answer. We have provided some guidance and will continue to develop more, to help you adopt .NET. The .NET for Visual FoxPro section on MSDN has several useful links. (http://msdn2.microsoft.com/en-us/vfoxpro/bb190277.aspx). I would be happy to help answer your questions, or point you to other experts in these areas within Microsoft. >Is there going to be an alternative or will Microsoft Sell VFP to another software house to keep the RDBMS and Programming Language alive? If not, is the DBMS still going to be available after 2015? There are currently no plans to sell VFP. >After 2015, will the MS OS'es not support VFP runtime? Unfortunately I cannot say, at this time. Existing VFP 9 SP2 deployments will certainly continue to work on today's operating systems even after 2015. However, it is not possible to guarantee compatibility with future Operating Systems. >What are plans for Operating System support for the VFP Runtime in the future? See response to prev question. >Will VFP still run after 2015? Yes. On existing platforms VFP will run. What are the risks to business, if they still use VFP after 2015? VFP will not be supported beyond 2015. We have several users still using FoxPro for DOS. These companies have evaluated their risks with this and have not migrated for several years. In speaking to them, we have heard that they have not seen the need to migrate at all. This is certainly not the course we recommend. However, you should evaluate your own risks, and determine the your strategic roadmap for migration and tech adoption. >What is Microsoft's official thoughts on a migration path from VFP? See response above. We recommend migrating to the .NET platform. The paths, phases and deployment strategies are different for each company. >Do you know how much a total re-write is going to cost businesses? I think that possibly at least 5 Man years will be our cost to change our suit of products over to a new platform. It is certainly a worrying time for us small businesses that have relied on VFP as our language of choice. It gave us an upgrade path from Dbase/Clipper, was an excellent RDBMS with much better performance than Access and kept the excellent Xbase language alive. >Are you forcing everyone to go to SQL server (expensive, per seat costs, makes our application more expensive to end users) or Access databases (limited users, poor performance) Just as applications migrated from Dbase/Clipper or Paradox, so would they from Visual FoxPro. There is certainly no requirement to make this transition immediately. Enterprise Editions of SQL Server do have a price point. However, these are meant for enterprise scale data, and applications that have higher demands on reliability, security and scalability. Often these applications depend on other auxiliary services such as replication and analysis services, etc. If your application does not demand this scale, SQL Express and SQL Server Compact Edition are both excellent alternatives. Both are free and very robust. >I have heard in groups that .Net projects are failing and companies out there are turning .Net projects into VFP to get them working and delivered. Can you comment on that? Unfortunately I am not aware of this data. We would be very interested in working with companies that have moved from .NET to VFP, to help understand the roadblocks and definitely help clear them. >I would like your thoughts on all of the above so I can face some tough decisions. I do understand that you face a tough decision. In making this announcement the VFP team also faced a tough challenge. The team has core members that have worked with Fox for more than 20 years. Please let me know if I can assist you with your migration. Thanks. >From Microsoft So, there you have it. Microsoft say, go to .Net and they don't know exactly when Windows will stop running the VFP runtime. Robert -----Original Message----- From: [EMAIL PROTECTED] [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] On Behalf Of Ed Leafe Posted At: 03 April 2007 13:24 Posted To: Profox Archive Conversation: Another life after VFP thread? Subject: Re: Another life after VFP thread? On Apr 3, 2007, at 7:53 AM, Robert Jennings wrote: > Of course not. They buy a new PC and the get the new OS! It's got to > work with whatever version of windows they have. Then that's what you need to get assurance from Microsoft on: does "support for VFP until 2015" mean that they will guarantee that VFP will run on any Windows OS from now until then? -- Ed Leafe -- http://leafe.com -- http://dabodev.com [excessive quoting removed by server] _______________________________________________ Post Messages to: ProFox@leafe.com 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.
