>Our development team has been Visual Foxpro developers since version 5 and are very much comfortable with VFP. All our previous applications have been done with the native VFP databases (DBF's).
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>Now, we are embarking on doing a brand new version using 3-tier approach and using SQL databases (but also would like to be able to scale down back to DBF's for small size clients).

I have heard often that VFP applications developed with Visual MaxFrame can be switched between DBF and SQL backends with a minimum of effort. You retain all the advantages of VFP's data-centric language for both large and small clients.

At the GLGDW closing session last month, by a show of hands more than 1/3 of the 200+ in that meeting were still maintaining FP/DOS applications-- 10 years after the first VFP was released. I find that FP/DOS plays well on WinXP peer-to-peer networks. A well-written product!

The reason for making this point is to ask what will be a workable solution for basic business applications in 2013? I'm willing to predict that VFP will be a functional tool for some portion of the market. Maybe not for those who desire to play with the newest toys, but still useful.

>It is important that when we decide it would be for both short term and long term benefits, so -....