Taking the worst case scenario of 60 users, at most, you will need 30-40 concurrent connections. You can get this number lower, but we will stick with that. You can go up to CDW and get a 25 client liscense of SQL for about $3,700 bucks. So for 50 licsenses, we are only talking about $7,400. In the grand scheme of things, this IS NOT a lot of money. Oracle on the other hand, could be as much as $1,500 per client. Now that is expensive. And that is why Oracle is going to get it's ass mopped up.

The deal is this Erik, if somebody came to me and asked "Hey, would you build us a client-server system for our 60 users. To say that a typical system would cost $60-$80 thousand dollars is not out of line. Any less, and in all liklihood, would sound like a losing propositon. Based on those metrics, the actual cost of the database is less than 10% of the total cost. Shit man, for an additional $5,000, you could bury the cost of a pretty nice server.

The economics are there. It is a matter of finding clients that are willing to pay, not trying to get something for nothing.....

You know, this is what MS has provided. There have never been the economies of scale we have know in building this stuff. 10 years ago, the same class of system would probably cost several hundred thousand dollars. I wonder if those DOJ ass-wipes ever took that into account....<s>


>>>There is a reason that databases like SQL server and Oracle cost a small fortune: They cost a small fortune to develop. These are not simple pieces of software.
>>>
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>>5 user licsense for SQL server is about $800. I don't think that is a fortune..
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>5 user license for VFP is free.
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>I don't have a single 5-user client. 15-60 is more like it, and that's a lot of money.