James, I can see I wasn't clear, sorry.

My point was that before making a blanket database recommendation, you need to consider the customer base, their likely hardware, and the track record of conversion to C/S.

I raised the Intuit experience to show that Intuit, with millions of small business customers, did not follow the "strong" recommendation of our local experts. Why not? Presumably because SQL Anywhere is far more tolerant and accessible for small companies without technical support staff. Even so, Intuit saw a huge push-back.

Those recommending a SQL Server variant over dbfs apparently see little importance in this and simply make a "strong" recommendation that apparently stands alone.

My point was that before making such a blanket recommendation, a little more understanding of the customer base and needs might be wise. You didn't make a "strong" recommendation about SQL anywhere, you advised that people should look at it, which makes perfect sense to me.