Old timer here, just adding my two cents worth: As a gun-for-hire RF/ATE engineer, I've done "three tours" over several decades at BAE Systems in southern NH. LabWindows/CVI (and its original open-source "test-executive add-on" now known as TestStand) were the core of the ATE software development tools for MANY 5th-generation fighter airborne electronic-support-systems at BAE, and they run multiple shifts to this day, every day. I've also done "two tours" at Raytheon in MA in between those same decades at BAE, and the same statement applies, except the ATE applications were for both shipboard and ground-based radars. On my third "tour" at BAE, the chief engineer and staff of their newly consolidated integrated test engineering department (operating across all BAE facilities in North America) had to make the hard decision to push CVI to the corner, and switch to C-sharp on Visual Studio for all new programs going forward, and roll these C-sharp compiled .NET native assemblies up into TestStand. These were/are all brand new C# libraries that couldn't be easily converted from existing VXIPnP and/or IVI instrument drivers. The reason for this costly switchover (at BAE, I lost track of what Raytheon did with CVI as I left there after the UTC-merger) was specifically due to back-chatter from the NI representatives (at trade-shows and in the NI field offices) who couldn't create a coherent message on the future of CVI. Please know that the good news for NI is: both BAE and Raytheon use a bank of servers for NI's FlexLM floating licensing, scattered over each of their corporate WANs, into the white-world desktop development PC's (while single-seat annualized license files are created/updated for closed-area systems, however). This actually helps you NI folks, because these NI IDE tools/libraries/modules are all based on high-count site-licenses, so the ability to retain some "continuing base" of CVI users might be sustainable into the future. This means that your six-years-late update/sustainment of CVI 2026 has a chance of latching on again. This assumes of course that the engineering team leaderships at companies like BAE and Raytheon get a unified answer from high-level NI-representative on what is going to happen. For example, outfits like Keysight and others in the HW/SW T&M industry provide five-year roadmaps to outfits like BAE and Raytheon, for comparison. So my recommendation to NI, as I enter my full retirement later this year, is to STOP relying on "back-chatter from the NI representatives", and instead develop a fully formed, multi-year message/roadmap on what/when and WHY you are bringing this terrific IDE back to life, and what your five-year plans are. P.S. - lots of companies here in the great-white-north of New England are now ditching Windoze and migrating over to 64-bit flavors of Red Hat Linux. I therefore recommend that a part of your roadmap should include reviving your existing 32-bit Linux CVI Runtime Module (not to be confused with its 32-bit Linux CVI Runtime Engine) and recompiling them to 64-bit, then putting it back into your sales-stream with the same 32-bit literature, slightly updated. That should be a set of quick-and-dirty tasks, no?. Rant over. JB
