>>Hi All,
>>
>>A large Corporate Client of mine was prepared to update a VFP 9 App until they went on Microsoft's VFP Main page: http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/vfoxpro/bb190225.aspx and got scared by the statement:
>>
>>"Note that Visual FoxPro 9.0 is the last version and was published in 2007. For a great solution for building modern business applications, take a look at LightSwitch in Visual Studio 2012"
>>
>>which they interpreted this as "Microsoft is telling us to use another product."
>>
>>So we have another case of FUD - Fear, Uncertainy Doubt..So I have to reassure them..
>>
>
>
>If it is large corporate client then you could easily convince to use some strong back-end like M$SQL / Oracle etc
>whereas you can use all the marketing firepower of M$ / Oracle respectively from their websites as wind in your back.
>As for application, you do major parts (easily) in VFP9 and then just spray pepper it all together with some additional functionality written in NET! You add some nice shiny third part BI / Dataminning / Graphs written in NET (using all the NET marketing firepower in your favor again) and then you present it all very nicely to their mid/top management as;
>
> 'blah blah... Blend of powerful, state of the art technologies ...blah blah... Minimizing costs... blah blah... Maximizing profits... etc
>
>Those corporate dumb-a$$es are literally melting when they hear words like NET, 'Business Intelligence', 'Data Mining' , 'Minimizing Costs', 'Maximizing Profits' and that kind of stuff... Be Creative! (Or hire some professional BS-Artist, they are abundant nowadays {g} )
>
>As helper argument, you can present your project price structure along with comparison with prices if similar solution
>was to be undertaken by SAP or M$ Dynamics. (If you get them to obtain SAP quotation for the same project, you win outright!)
>
>So you see... They (mid MGM) end up both happy and 'business intelligent' in the same time, while you hopefully do a really god project and make those ordinary every day users happy on a daily bases ;)
>
>Cheers :)

Thanks everyone for chiming in..

Just to clarify, this is an application which has (and continues to) run successfully for 15 years (originally created in VFP5 - running in VFP 9 since 2005)..Runs 24/7..System has never lost a single record of Data or been down once in that time...Some business rules have changed and components will be added and deleted..System basically Maintains Data, does a lot of Querying & has a bit of Reporting involved..Basic stuff that VFP does great..Management's main concern is what happens if a problem arises with the Core that Microsoft won't fix..

Marshal