>Perry,
>
>I strongly disagree with you. There were signs on the wall, according to some. But those signs were not supported by official statements. I belong to those who took the official statements serious, rather than those 'signs on the walls'. Not because I'm blind, but because I want to be driven by trust, rather than by distrust. And I assume the same applies to the decision makers of certain IT companies.
>
>But hey, I'm not really interested in THAT discussion. That issue has already been discussed the last couple of days. Rather, this thread should be used to ventilate what we think the impact on certain companies and customer-relations will gonna be. Are the consequences serious? I predict they are. For who? Only for those companies? For us? For MS?

Well I agree with Perry. When they brought out the roadmap 2 years ago, it was all about interoperability with .NET, Vista etc. Pretty much a big clue when no core features are talked about. I think that you were hoping rather than using common sense.

If companies have been smart, they've been keeping their designs n-tier, with the ability to produce their middle tier as com objects. This allows them to start thinking about other technologies for certain tiers if they want.

I'm not moving anywhere in a hurry. VFP will be running fine for many years yet - who knows where the technology will be at by the time VFP becomes untenable. People are still running FPW apps!

We could all jump to .NET and in 10 years .NET is replaced by MS .COOLESTTHINGYET.

It's a cycle that will repeat continually.

I have some .NET components running in the system I am working on, to rewrite others will be a BIG task. I'm assuming that a time will come when it becomes obvious that other parts need to be rewritten - I'll be waiting until this becomes a clear necessity. I may have retired by then.

As for customer relations - if you have a great solution to their business problem, they shouldn't be getting bent out of shape about no VFP 10. Tell them that you will move over to a new technology when it becomes necessary. It's basic business acumen and not confined to software development houses.