SNIP
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>I'm not thrilled about this, but, in MY opinion, it's a very sound business decision.

Good that you have insight into Microsoft's revenue flows, strategies and objectives, etc. < s >
Personally I wish you'd share them so we can all get to the same page.

It is a "sound business decision" if, and only if...

1) Customers are not left high and dry by the "vision".
--- The "roadmap" implies the destination of the VFP developer community to be .NET, and we can't say we haven't been warned often enough. BUT what about all those applications aout there that end-users have? Geez, we get tons of questions still on FPD/FPW and no amount of push a developer community away from something or into something is going to change that. And I'm sure that more than a minority of FP/VFP developers feel some obligation to continue to support those customers. So while MS may push the developer, the customer is pushing back. What to do about that???

2) It accomplishes Microsoft's strategic goal which I read as 'VFP developers get your a**es over to .NET as soon as possible'.
--- If VFP developers take the "opportunity" to move to Delphi (or Recital???) or Linux I think the soundness of the decision comes into question.

In other words, Microsoft seems to have a problem with VFP and its developer community and its end-user base and has published a "roadmap" that outlines their strategy to solve THEIR problem.
To me the big question is "Are VFP developers positioned to fulfill Microsoft's strategy without impact to their (VFP developers but by extension MS' too) installed customer base?????".
Until we hear more, no one can say.
The "support until 2014" is flatly stated, but the quality/cost of that "support" remains highly questionable, at least as I see it. There was something about 'regular' support until 2009, then 'extended' support to 2014. But the details about that 'extended' support are wholly unstated. It gives us the warm and fuzzies now, but will it be a nightmare when you actually try to use it in 2010?

Anyway, have a great weekend.

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>Thanks again,
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>Alex