>>I'm not assuming that anything is lacking. I'm looking for real-world examples where this has been done on a LAN. I'm also trying to understand if there are other good ways to this besides HTTP.

Well, on a LAN, of course, you've got DCOM to automation server(s) which do all the read/write to VFP tables and/or any mix of backend DB's you want, and return data to you as ADO, XML, data objects, etc. Put'em in MTS for scalability and away you go. Call it two-tier or three-tier, depending on how you package the components for business logic/data access. Still no big license fees...

Or use HTTP through web server on the intranet and have the same solution for internet, and get dbf's returned to client with ipstuff. I'm building one with Web Connection now that will be available over the web (point-to-point tunneling), as well as in-house on the intranet. The same data-access components under MTS will also be directly available in-house to VFP clients without having to go thru Web Connection.

For Internet or LAN, I don't see any pieces missing. Do you have Web Connection yet?