There are quite many companies that market complex, in-house built with vfp, off-the-shelf products. E.g., two of the leading Dutch bookkeeping packages are entirely written in vfp.

These companies now have a really serious problem. The MS decision to stop with further develpment of vfp forces them to invest heavilly in completely rewriting each of their complex packages. Has this problem already got the focussed attention of us all here?

For example, does law permit MS to stop further development? Isn't there a case when such a company goes to court, because it feels misled by MS? Afterall, MS has claimed many times in the past that vfp would not gonna die. Those promisses have led decision makers in those companies to decide that it was okay to use vfp as the primary programming language for the development of their complex packages. And now they feel forced to switch to another language, not in 8 years, but starting this year already.

And how about those of us who have successfully tried to convince customers that they can extend or modernize an existing vfp application, making it unnecessary for that customer to seek for a complete replacement. Those customers will gonna feel misled, by US, rather than by MS. And why did we make those promisses? Because there were no clear signs in the past that MS would gonna drop further development.