---That describes .NET perfectly. I don't give a hoot about XP nor Win2K. If you're using those, especially WIn2K, you're doing your business a disservice. The cost of maintaining those old OSes, of keeping the properly updated and running, and malware free, isn't worth it.
We have paid for Win2K. We have paid for WinXP. We have licenses for that stuff already. There's NO reason not to continue using them, except that you enjoy spending money on new, unnecessary stuff.
Modern $600 multi-core, multi-gigabyte RAM computers can also handle multiple instances of those much-smaller-footprint OSes running inside a VM on a single box, making another grand contribution to computing. I have done client/server testing on a single machine, all running WinXP (or Win2003 Server).
In any event, such arguments are religious. On my side, .NET costs a lot of money. You have to buy expensive servers, use a framework that consumes far more resources than it needs to, is slower than native code, installs for gigabytes of unnecessary layers of code because the Win32 OS itself already has everything that .NET provides, just perhaps not in as slick a package, which is where VFP9 and a few select custom DLLs come into play. And for MOST computing tasks, none of the new advantages are necessary. Users want to be able to access data, have nice input screens, generate simple reports, make backups, receive updates, etc. All of these are possible on existing technologies that everybody has already bought and paid for.
VFP9 was bought and paid for years ago. The Windows licenses were bought and paid for years ago. The hardware they run (if it still works) is already bought and paid for. And replacing those machines with newer equipment isn't nearly as expensive because you can buy far lower-end equipment and even have performance increases.
To each his own. Enjoy .NET in the cloud. There will be plenty of business for you up there. I'll stick around down here with the outcasts on the local LAN with local data storage in local tables or running on our own local servers.
I have no doubts you'll fare both financially and by reputation far better than I will. And that's great.
Best regards,
Rick C. Hodgin