I'm working on a research for the programming platform of our company's ERP project. With the introduction of .NET technology, we are having difficulties deciding on whether or not to continue to use VFP as our main platform. With the current trend in technology, most of the applications developed now were using web-based architecture through ASP.NET that access data in MSSQL. Since ASP.NET consumes data through XML, we found that performance of sending/requesting of data is much faster than directly accessing it with VFP through ODBC. Testing was initially done on two locations only simultaneously. The system would require access on all our branches to the main database resided in different location.

The result gave us initial assesment that follows:
1. Costing of connectivity is lower because this doesn't require higher bandwidth;
2. It doesn't require us to install the system on individual machine coz the browser will take care of it;
3. Development tools can be downloaded from the internet for free or any text editor available in the PC;
4. Client configuration on MSSQL would require license only for the IIS (compare to VFP->ODBC which requires licenses on every machine);
5. Faster transfer of data;
6. and so on...

First phase of the development started October last year, focusing mainly on Sales, Product Library, Customer Profile and Warehousing on one of the branches under VFP8. Other modules to follow.

For the last 8 years, i've been using VFP on other projects. Now i shift my career to VB.NET, C#.NET and ASP.NET and seen the capabilities of these new tools. There were some issues concerning the use of VFP here in our country like: lack of programmers knowledgeable of VFP and outsourcing company that uses VFP, to name a few.

Please give me advice on these matter.