>as mentioned above apples and oranges.
>we use both oracle and ms sql server with vfp. naturally, as you may know, ms sql is much more compatible with vfp. but i tend to think that oracle is much more powerful then ms sql. *$0.02*

There is already a more powerful database coming: CACHE - post-relational. With Oracle and SQL Server, you're dealing with layered tables, with CACHE it's a multi-dimensional database that is far faster in manipulating data. There is actually a benchmark done here, wherein, Oracle performed the process for about 4 minutes, whereas in CACHE, 45 seconds. The same code and the same frond-end tool used.