>Late majority or Laggards
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>I think that word "laggard" carries a payload. ;-) There seems to be an implicit assumption that anybody using VFP in 2007 is backward or slow. It's not true. Many of those using VFP do so because the proposed replacements simply aren't as good.
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>FWIW, I've exercised the same judgement when buying cars. since 2000 I've probably saved $50,000 by refusing to upgrade every time a new model came out unless there was a definite reason to do so. IMHO there never was, so I saved my $. Others upgraded every time. When I upgrade this year I'll have the same vehicle as them, but I'll be $50,000 ahead. So who's the laggard? ;-)

I certainly agree with a conservative approach. The other end of course is being on the cutting edge and we all know what that means. You'll be the first one to encounter problems and have to work your way through it, with the probability of creating workarrounds for problems that will be handled way more efficiently in a later version of the development tool.

Many suggest to make the jump to .NET, but don't realise there is a big difference between the tools. .NET is not a database tool, so is less efficient in handling data centric problems. For those doing simple data entry forms and some reporting it might not be a big deal and those will eventially be fine in .NET.

Another aspect is expertise. I can say I'm a very well seasoned VFP developer and can handle most problems very efficiently. In .NET I'm just a newbee making rooky mistakes. I would not sell anything significant in the first year of learning the framework.

Then there is the point of legacy. I've got an application worth of 10+ years of manhours of development. Appart from the technical problems in writing this in another tool, can you imagine this to be rewritten in a new language ??

There is a good side to this all as well. VFP will become a niche, even more than it is already. This means it will get harder and harder to find VFP qualified personnel. This also means that rates will go up. There always will be a demand for VFP developments because companies run applications that have just too much investment in an application to switch development tool.