Hi Sid,
We love our KS/Agilent/HP products and appreciate the hard work that has gone into BenchVue. A few years ago we inherited a full license for BenchVue, and I fired it up briefly on a Virtual Machine running a personal copy of Windows XP (officially licensed). Though we were dismayed at the size of the installation and the reliance on humongous Microsoft libraries, as well as a couple of show-stopping bugs, it did look like BV could be useful in the future -- if it were released for Linux. We deleted the XP VM with BV.
A number of years ago we ditched all Microsoft products to save money wasted on audits, license management, additional security requirements, and the myriad risks of agreeing to Microsoft EULA's. The BSA can never harass us again. Life has been great and our entire business infrastructure and development tool chain runs beautifully, Microsoft-free. It's actually surprisingly easy, with all of the support for Linux dev tools from the vast majority of the major manufacturers these days, as well as the powerful project management, real-time collaboration, CRM, and ERP tools available.
At this point we simply don't want or need to dedicate the resources required to safely run MS products -- for our business model it would only add unnecessary risk and expense.
Though it's clear KS is now dependent on the MS framework for BV, I still want to encourage you to please release your software products on OS platforms that don't force additional risk and expense on your customers.
Thanks for your consideration, and the great hardware you folks produce. Just wanted you to be aware of some of the issues faced by small companies struggling to keep costs down and security up by not entering into dangerous licensing terms with Microsoft.
phs