We’re very pleased with the enthusiastic reaction to our 64-bit Unicode DataFlex news announcement and blog – thanks to all of you who have responded so positively to them.

Building a 64-bit Unicode DataFlex product is a very big undertaking that will keep us all moving forward into the future while helping to grow the DataFlex community. “When” is always the first question to follow an exciting announcement like this and the simple answer is: we don’t know yet. We are making good progress, but we are too far from the target to forecast even pre-release dates with any accuracy. To give you as much as we can now for your planning purposes, here’s what you can’t and can expect:

  • Do not expect any product releases resulting from the 64-bit and Unicode projects until at least late in 2018; it could easily be longer (into 2019).
  • To keep the product moving forward with useful new features and functionality while we work on 64-bit and Unicode, you can expect a release of 32-bit DataFlex during 2018. Those enhancements will, of course, be carried forward in the 64-bit Unicode product when it releases. The next revision is being planned and worked on now; we will be unveiling details after January 1, 2018.

Please understand that we are as excited about 64-bit Unicode DataFlex as the community is. There is however still design and planning to be done in addition to significant work. We will keep you informed of our progress when we are further along, but we cannot engage in discussion of the implementation at this point because we don’t yet have all the answers ourselves. That’s a polite attempt to say, please don’t ask us about release dates and technical details now, we’ll tell you more as soon as we can. And, we will.

In the meantime, we will focus on building an interim 32-bit release and a 64-bit Unicode DataFlex for you that meet the standards of innovation, quality, reliability, and performance that you expect from us.

Your enthusiasm and your patience are greatly appreciated.