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Plans for Visual FoxPro beyond version 9.0 coming in June

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A formal Microsoft Visual FoxPro Roadmap as well as my June letter with additional news is scheduled to go online on June 1st at https:///msdn.com/vfoxpro. The Visual FoxPro roadmap will not mention anything around a service pack for Visual FoxPro 9.0, but it is likely something on that front will be in my June letter targeting a near end of 2005 release. Visual FoxPro 9.0 is by far the most stable version of Visual FoxPro we have ever released with very few issues reported. A Service Pack 1 for Visual FoxPro 9.0 would probably release around the end of this year based on feedback, reports, etc. A service pack is completely independent of our plans on enhancing Visual FoxPro in the future.

 

Our goal is that when the Visual FoxPro Roadmap is released along with some basic Questions & Answers on the VFP FAQ page added, there won't be anything that insiders know that members in the Visual FoxPro community won't know. We want to expose all that Microsoft is planning, thinking, doing, etc. (transparency) around Visual FoxPro long term so there are nothing to assume or guess. Top Microsoft executives have already seen the Visual FoxPro Roadmap details, and the Visual FoxPro team has already started working on enhancing Visual FoxPro beyond version 9.0 (aside from service pack efforts). People should keep in mind that our goals and focus is on how Visual FoxPro apps run in 5+ years rather than on specific VFP IDE, engine, and language features.

 

There are many things we can and will do for enhancing Visual FoxPro to interop more and more with the Microsoft .NET platform. In fact, our plans for enhancing Visual FoxPro for .NET interop is our primary goal for enhancing Visual FoxPro going forward. We will also enhancing functionality for Visual FoxPro reports, productivity, and other areas that have nothing to do with .NET (VFP stand-alone). We want to focus on having Visual FoxPro leverage as much as possible integrated into the .NET platform using COM interop. Later in June, I will continue to post more details and examples of some of the details we are working on for enhancing Visual FoxPro beyond version 9.0, including a new Channel 9 video on VFP with cool demos of exciting new features we've already started working on.