>>The problem with that of course is the cost of the terminal server licences...sadly if people are remoting into a windows server to use a VFP windows desktop app, it's time to toss in the towel and move on.

As I said, if clients already require users to remote in to run business apps, including browser apps: then the wider availability of RDC can perpetuate previously deprecated Windows apps IMHO. We moved most of our stuff to browser in the early 2000s, and are now offering tweaked old faithfuls again. Performance of VFP Compiled apps: unbelievable.

FWIW, while huge corporates have resources or a business requirement to expose web servers to the wild, not all businesses want to do that. Especially when we keep seeing huge data breaches via hacks and leaks. E.g. this year's Equifax leak exposing 145M people in the US to identity theft because hackers found an Apache Struts flaw in a sleepy corner of an online disputes portal. The churn of Rube Goldberg dependencies and vulnerabilities almost guarantees something like this will be missed eventually.

Which is why many/most of my clients prefer to set up their doctors' and others' personal devices for RDS access. Nothing exposed on the web so no risk of illicit hacking from Ukraine or wherever. As for utility: what's the difference remoting in to use a browser vs a Windows app? Not least since some prevalent systems insist on IE for desktop (because cross platform is too expensive, they say) and I've watched doctors cheerfully navigating IE via RDS from their Macs or even a pad.

>> The Android client has been around for a long time, and there have been ways to remote in using a browser too for a long time -- but really it's antiquated to do all of this.

IMHO the browser is becoming a liability. Too much complexity, too much Rube Goldberg, too many hackers motivated to sneak in to destroy your reputation and/or business. And the more clever bits you include to mimic the responsiveness and features of an ordinary Windows entry form, the more risk of sneaky vulnerabilities taking you down. If the essence of quality is standardization, then the browser milieu is at war with quality. ;-)

Why expose this to the wild when for a few bucks- as little as $100 per RDS CAL according to a quick google- you can keep the barbarians outside the walls? Compared to what cost of having a few million patient records stolen? I can answer that one: check out the story of Accretive Health that was flying high until one employee lost control of just 23,000 patient records. They lost statewide contracts and suffered huge business loss, eventually changing their name this year to try to put it behind them.

>>The new 64-bit compiler helps extend the life of VFP more than anything if you ask me -- but only useful for local network desktop apps. And doing new development with VFP seems like you would be doing a dis-services to the customer as it's not even supported by Microsoft.

VFP Compiler fixes the known bugs that MS couldn't fix and assures longevity by compiling up to the latest VC++ including x64, though VFP's remarkably small memory footprint means there's few if any reasons to use x64. FWIW, pulling out mothballed Windows apps (we moved most of our stuff to browser in the early 2000s) and VFP Compiling delivers absolutely staggering performance. I suppose that's not so surprising when 133Mhz Pentiums were just released when VFP3 came out.