Max;

I do not know what happened. Getting too old or something!

Microsoft and its partners need your money to sustain our ability to provide you with service that you have accepted as critical to your companies operation. :)

Seriously, I cannot think of any reason to cut support unless all ramifications have been considered. If this is a small number of users and the finical base is small it might be best to “cut your losses and run”. Attempting to convince satisfied customers that they must have the latest greatest technology from Microsoft is an almost impossible sell.

I have mentioned my friends who own the largest music literature store in Northern California. Their system was created in 1986 and runs the store with five computers, cash drawers, inventory, accounting, ordering, etc. They see no need to update this DOS based solution. Where is the support? Me. No big deal. I think I have spent one hour working on the Y2K thing and that is the maintenance since original delivery. Not a money maker for me is it? The system continues to run without the blessing of Microsoft.

Hopefully, you can define a strategic logic that will convince the clients to upgrade. I would suggest relying upon the fact that these products/tools are no longer supported by Microsoft. As previous clients you should have a “special price” to allow them to upgrade their systems and a migration path/timetable to do so. Make them feel "special" and that you care. "We are truely concerned about our clients and our relationship with them. Due to events beyond our control (Microsoft) we are no longer able to provide service or support for our product as of ............ However, we are doing everything to rectify this by creating a new version of our product with the latest technology which will enable you to go into the future with out hesitation (until the next release of a Microsoft product perhaps)." Cough, cough, it is getting thick and heavy in here. I had better stop now!

The hard part about all of this is when the client upgrades hardware. That can be a killer and eat up a lot of time. Then they upgrade the operating system and your application is in “doggie heaven”. You are at fault under this situation as your application is not working but all the new hardware/software is working fine. Come out and fix my system!

Pull this off and you will be the chief of marketing and sales! :)

By the way, Katy and I were in Milpitas on Sunday at the Community Center where we had a flamenco event. Kool! On March 2, we have a big event in downtown San Jose. They actually invited me back to play another solo!

Best of luck.

Ciao.

Tom







>A blank page?
>That's it Tom? :)
>
>Max
>>>Hi all,
>>>
>>>My company finally decided to cut support for our customers still running in FoxPro DOS and UNIX and offer them our "windows" version (for a complete background please see thread 606882).
>>>
>>>Now I need to write a nice and kind letter explaining them why we are doing this and how this is going to be for their advantage...
>>>I found already the "product support discountinuance" list in MS site but I need more ammunition.
>>>
>>>There is any documentation out there on the benefits of going to actualized technology, the importance of keeping current, the perils of being stuck in the past or something like that?
>>>
>>>TIA
>>>
>>>Max