>1. With tables that large I'd push the client *real hard* to upsize to Oracle. Keep in mind that in the scheme of RDBMS SQL Server falls into the *workgroup* category and Oracle (or Sybase and a few others) fall into the *enterprise category.
Oracle programmers pull down $150/Hr. in this area, and that's *after* dropping $50-100 K on the package. Talk about overkill! Do you balance your checkbook with a Cray? Talk Oracle at 50 Million records and up. SQL Server can go up to that for a lot less investment.

John,
1.3 million records is nothing for VFP. If that's your history after 2 years, You can store 10 or 12 years of data easily. In 8 years we'll be on VFP10 which can handle more. But by then, you'll be gone. And they'll never say "That bum's idea only got us 10 years of use out of a $495 package!"

My experience has been that browses are still instant at 7 Million records, SQL Selects are as fast as the number of records they pull back. If you give it 2 or 3 pieces of information, and this is enough to return only a handful of records, your select will run in under a second. If it takes longer, use SYS(3054) to ensure that it is optimized properly.

Finally, remember that there is a cost associatted with retooling. If you can get it done today using tables, or next week using views, use the tables. They're more flexible, more friendly, faster, and your users don't give a rat's patootie about "Client/Server", they want results.

jt