Excellent post, Robert! Thanks for the thoughtful message. On 4/2/07, Robert Jennings <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote: > > Granted, the software does need overhauling,
So does every major application I've ever worked on ;) > but I'm astounded that there is not an upgrade path. I think, more than anything else, MS does not appreicate the level of effort that goes into applications built on top of their platforms. Companies like Symantec and Adobe and Oracle struggle to keep up. Smaller companies with longer timeframes and tight margins just can't keep up with the twists and turns, and perhaps they should not. > Now lets look what I face. > Move all my applications over to another Language e.g. Dabo, .NET (any > flavour), Python etc etc etc. > This is going to mean that I have to stop the Modifications and Upgrades to > my applications while I (and the rest of the team) re-write the applications > (6 of them) from the ground up. This is going to cost my company at least > £200,000 ($400,000) for every Year it takes to re-write (Wages / Lost > potential earnings in Modifications & Upgrades). I think it will take 3 of us > at least 3 years to re-write all 6 modules. 9 MAN YEARS if we are flying. So, double it as a contingency. > We are a small company, because of Microsoft actions our profitability is > going to take a big hit. Our customers are going to see a slowdown in our > reaction times (which at the moment is lightning) and they will face a bill > to upgrade once we have re-coded. Companies are going to have less confidence > in our products because they know that Microsoft is stopping support for VFP > in 2015. If we had a rough date by which time VFP will no longer work on the > VFP platform at least we could reassure customers slightly. > It's been my experience that most of my customers were not able to slow down their responsiveness to existing customers while taking on the major new Dot-Oh version of the product in a new environment, whether that was FP 2 DOS to 2.6 Windows, FP 2.x to VFP 5 (luckily we all skipped 3!) or VFP to whatever-comes-next. It certainly makes the budget difficult to work out. Too little responsiveness or a sense from your customers that your future is uncertain, and they flock to a competitor. It's best to get ahead of this by promoting a future roadmap. > If we go over to .NET will Microsoft Kill that at some point? I think you already know the answer to this one, Robert. DotNet is just MS' latest means of extracting a continous revenue stream from their customers. There has to be another one; that's how they operate. I really see this open a wider question: is it feasible, practical and wise to base a 10- to 20-year product development cycle on a set of development tools that are single-sourced from any vendor? I've come to the conclusion it is not. Best of fortunes with your business, Ted -- Ted Roche Ted Roche & Associates, LLC http://www.tedroche.com _______________________________________________ Post Messages to: [email protected] Subscription Maintenance: http://leafe.com/mailman/listinfo/profox OT-free version of this list: http://leafe.com/mailman/listinfo/profoxtech Searchable Archive: http://leafe.com/archives/search/profox This message: http://leafe.com/archives/byMID/profox/[EMAIL PROTECTED] ** All postings, unless explicitly stated otherwise, are the opinions of the author, and do not constitute legal or medical advice. This statement is added to the messages for those lawyers who are too stupid to see the obvious.
