Grigore,
>"Many VFP apps are using SQL Server" versus "EVERY VB.NET app is using SQL Server".
I've done several .NET apps -- several that talk to SQL Server, but others that talk to Oracle or VFP tables (via OLE-DB driver). If you use the login/profile/membership features of .NET 2.0, it's SQL Server by default, but you can also override that with your own membership provider written to talk to any database.