In some industries it has been shown that "exhibiting a social conscience" increases revenue. Guess what, all the firms exhibit a social conscience. ;-)

Ending VFP has very few consequences for MS. The product has been dissed in popular circles, including by MS reps, for well over a decade. Many of those with MS's ear have moved on, either to NET where they maintain the same relationship with MS or across to open source in disappointment. Any "noise" made by the VFP community to support its position is very easily cast as sour grapes and there are dozens of "ex-VFP experts" more than willing to shove in the knife. You won't see media releases about people using VFP because the alternatives aren't as good: you'll see references to firms making the change to NET because there is no choice now that the product is terminated, generally including a reference to vfpconversion or similar, or firms who used to use VFP but made the change ages ago when it because obvious they should. VFP developers will come across as laggards, the slightly dopey unfortunates who could not see the obvious when it was paraded before their eyes and who have now placed themselves and their customers in jeopardy.

The reality is that nothing has really changed. How long is it since you needed or used MS support? MS hasn't even stocked VFP in New Zealand for years, meaning we've had to purchase it abroad. What has changed is that competitors and MS reps are now able to diss the product truthfully. That's probably the main "feature" to cause people to change.