>>>>The "Suggested Concurrent User Limit" is 5 according to one of the Backgrounders I read in the MSDN Library.
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>>>Right. I'm aware of that, but it looks like the practical limit is a bit higher. Wow! That's totally the opposite of most MS products.
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>>You know, come to think of it, you're right. That is opposite. A trend?
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>Not surprising when you think about the origin and marketing of MSDE. MSDE is a variation on SQL-Server which is sold very cheaply. (No cost component in Visual Studio. I'm not sure about Office 2000.)

According to the Office 2000 docs: "...Office 2000 includes a separate program to install the Microsoft Data Engine (MSDE)."

>They probably didn't change the SQL-Server code all that much. But they don't want to lose SQL-Server sales to a free component. So they advertise a very low number of concurrent users.
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That makes a lot of sense, since MSDE is SQL Server 7.0 compatible.