>>>>Yesterday in a meeting with a new face at a Client's office he said "FoxPro is the software no one uses any more". Fortunately someone else remarked that the main purpose of the software was to get the job done and that it was doing the job very well.
>>>>
>>>>You all must have come across this situation. What answers have you given and what software have Clients suggested as being better than VFP and for what reasons?
>>>
>>>The real killer of VFP apps, in my opinion, will be the OS. Most of our clients are still running Windows 2003 Server 32-bit and we're fine. We are now getting requests from our clients to certify our application to run on Windows 2008 Server 64-bit (quad core cpus) and noted that our application is running on WoW (windows-on-windows) compatibility-mode using 32-bit DLLs.
>>>
>>>When you think about it, Windows XP can't even be upgraded to Windows 7, MS cut the umbilical cord of that generation of software (including VFP).
>>>
>>>Forget about Linux - MS has something to say about that as was discussed in UT some time ago.
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>>Yes I agree with you -the big boys will move away from VFP - but you are also saying that the smaller guys will ultimately follow because the hardware will be 64bit? will VFP run on a 64bit processor?
>
>The small guys will follow with any applications that are expected to have a long lifespan (something more than an immediate need). It makes no sense to develop an application with an expected lifespan of more than a year or 2 (if that) with a development environment that has no future and effectively no manufacturer support.
>
>A good VFP developer can whip up an application quickly (probably faster than a .NET developer), but in 5 years the .NET application will in all likelyhood be supportable and upgradable.

I don't care about manufacturer support and as for no future I suppose that rally depends on the number of developers who will still know VFP in say 3 years

But take a stab at the number of companies worldwide using VFP at the moment - if we don't know we should find a way of getting the answer - after all it's our living that's at stake here