It’s a sad day for some in the development community as Microsoft has announced that the next version of Visual FoxPro will not be released.

This is a shame, but I can certainly understand why the plug has been pulled on this product.  FoxPro was the first Windows-based database engine I had the opportunity to work with.  I enjoyed the fact that I could open each database file and index as required, and working with a event-driven model rather than procedural.

There was a time when FoxPro databases were everywhere and the platform of choice in small to medium-sized businesses.  However, with the big strides Microsoft has made to push SQL Server as the solution of choice (which is not surprising considering it’s raw power and larger price tag), there seems to be very little room left for the little guy.  Gone are the days when you can host a database on a simple file server.

Naturally, Microsoft will continue to offer support on the current releases of Visual FoxPro until 2015, but SP2 will likely be the final update to this package.  I am curious to know if MS will release this software as part of their Shared Source Initiative, though.  I can see FoxPro having many more years of active development if some of the die-hard FP Programmers out there kept the projects going.