>My experience with this change has not been good. I was unable to make Simply 2008 work when installed on the Server as per instructions. The tech. support people could not figure what was wrong because MySql could not open the data on the server (Windows 2003 due to some drive mapping issues they think) so we are back to having it installed on a workstation. Even after removing all drive mapping we had not success.
>
>Business Vision uses Pervasive and it has speed problems because if you install it in the wrong order a workstation can get designated as the server and the speed is terrible. The average user does not realize what the problem is. You have to uninstall it and tell it where to find the server when you do the install. Most small shops are not use to thinking like this so they just install it and wonder why it is so slow.
>
>Simon
>
>
>>>Charles, until recently products like Quickbooks, used by millions of businesses for invoicing and accounting on which they absolutely depend, stored its data in proprietary local files. Intuit's decision to change to SQLAnywhere wasn't exactly greeted with a "sigh of relief" by customers- depending who you ask, the opposite may well be true. ;-)
>>>
>>>Also, it's worth asking why so many vendors are offering freeware versions of their "big" databases.
>>
>>Just as another data point, for their 2008 product Simply Accounting (by Sage) has switched to a MySQL backend, from Access/Jet they were using previously.
>>
>>It looks like the players in this industry now think that Mom&Pop businesses deserve big(ger)-company data integrity and security.

At the one install of Simply 2008 I've done so far, it went very cleanly. It's a small SBS 2003 network. What's a little confusing to anyone with some networking experience is the 3 install types it supports:

- Full installation: installs everything you need to run the product on your local machine - program plus MySQL database

- A so-called "Workstation" installation

- Data-only installation - installs only the MySQL database and Connection Manager

I figured out that the first step was to do a data-only installation on the server. This worked fine. If you have a firewall enabled on the server you have to open a port so workstations can see the MySQL server but that's reasonably well documented.

The next step, which I found counterintuitive, is that you do a Full installation on each workstation that's going to run Simply. After doing so and starting up the product, at no point are you asked for the MySQL instance you want to use to store your data (local or the one on the server) - it automagically finds and uses the one on the server. I confirmed this by looking at the connection count in the Connection Manager on the server vs. on the workstation - 2 vs. 0. No drive mapping of any kind is required.

The "workstation" installation is just a way to minimize the installation space required on a workstation's hard drive by configuring it to "share" certain components from a Full installation on someone else's workstation. That has got to be a dumb idea for any computers or networks less than 7 or 8 years old.

One thing I found interesting is that the built-in backup utility backs up to a .SDB file. Thinking about that now, I don't know whether an imported 2007 .SDB is stored natively in MySQL, or whether MySQL is just attaching to the .SDB similar to how SQL Server can attach to non-SQL Server database files.