As a Sage Pro ERP customer, you should understand the facts surrounding Microsoft's announcement to end Visual Fox Pro (VFP). In 2007 Microsoft announced that it would no longer release new versions of this product and in January 2010, mainstream support for Visual Fox ended.
What does this mean to you as Sage Pro customer? Sage Pro ERP is developed using VFP and has allowed the product to deliver many unique feature and tools as well as the ability to fully customize your business systems. The end of support for VFP by Microsoft means that you, as a business owner need to be aware of several areas that may affect your business.
- 64-bit operating systems
- integrated software programs
- Hardware purchases
64 bit can relate to both the hardware processor and the operating system. Most operating systems purchase today will run in both 32 and 64 bit. As the standard in computing moves toward 64 bit this will pose a problem for Sage Pro customers as the program can only run within a 32 bit environment making an upgrade to a 64 bit environment impossible while using the current Sage Pro ERP program.
There are many other program which integrate with your ERP system including databases, hardware drivers and other programs such as online banking, CRM and custom built applications. As the technology written with Visual Fox Pro gets older it will become harder to create new integration and with no support for VFP from Microsoft, updating these integration points will be difficult if not impossible
Changing events within the technology industry may have raised a few questions for you as a customer. So we would like to address some of the questions that have come to our attention.
Q. How will these changes to VFP affect future versions of Sage Pro?
A. Sage Pro 7.7 was released in April 2011 and we have since released several Product Updates. These product updates include program fixes as well as product enhancements and features and we will continue to provide these updates to our valued customers
Q. What is the path for Sage Pro after 2015, after extended support of VFP from Microsoft has been discontinued?
A. While Microsoft will be discontinuing its support of VFP, that does not mean that Sage Pro will stop working come 2015. This product code will indeed still continue to provide functionality. This issue was addressed in a statement by Alan Griver of Microsoft on April 3, 2007:
"It's never an easy decision to announce that we're not going to release another version of a product, and it's one that we consider very carefully. We're not announcing the end of FoxPro. Obviously, FoxPro applications will continue to work. By some of our internal estimates, there are more applications running in FoxPro 2.6 than there are in VFP, and FoxPro 2.6 hasn't been supported in many years. Visual FoxPro 9 will be supported by Microsoft through 2015."
Q. What is the Sage policy for supporting older versions of Sage Pro?
A. Sage's current support policy includes supporting the current version in production and one version back.
Q. Will Microsoft's discontinuation of support for VFP mean that I will need to move off of Sage Pro to some other product?
A. By choosing a Sage product and working with your Sage Business Partner, you are choosing a team that will support you for the life of your business. If there comes a time when it makes sense for you to migrate to another Sage product, we will have migration tools available for you and your partner to make the transition an easy one. No matter which Sage product you are using, you can rest assured that we will continue to provide you with great business products, and your Sage Business Partners will continue to service your needs for the life of your business.
Q. What will happen between now and the time that VFP is no longer a supported development language?
A. Sage is committed to you as our customer for the life of your business. Our goal is to provide the products you need to make it easier to manage your business. With that commitment in mind, we will be building a bridge between our products today and our products in the future. If another solution is better suited for your business, your Business Partner can provide recommendations on the best product to migrate to, provide you with special discounted pricing for qualifying Sage products, and help ensure your migration experience is a smooth one.
Read Sage Pro Customer Success Stories
