>I'll recommend someone else do the job. I've done that before.
>
>Fair enough. But you asked why people wouldn't do everything on the server. Backend independence is one reason. People in other niches may not want to send customers to somebody else because they're tied to the wrong database.

This smacks of the arguments on here a short while ago as to the viability of VFP in the market. A bunch of people said the client doesn't care about the technology, which is why they could still sell a VFP based application..

SQL Server is absolutely viable, and is scalable from the desktop to the datacenter, and is priced well compared to Oracle, is easier to code for compared to Oracle (yes - I've had to work with Oracle in the past), and is superior in features to most. I stand by it.