>Yes thanks. Again I am aware terminal server and Citrix alternatives. But as I understand it, that would require investments in Hardware at the server side.

It will probably not be anything near the cost of what you will have to spend to support this. You can get a small server (here) for around $2000. This is a no brainer to me.

>We were wondering if we could do without that, by opening a 500 kb line that would allow us peaks to 2Mb that we need anyway for videoconferencing.

It is not going to be fast enough... 500kb is 1/20th the speed of 10baseT(10mb ethernet). There's just not enough of a pipe.

>
>It has always been my intention to go COM. It's my understanding that if I do that, I will have a kind of a client server alternative, keeping the advantage of the flexibility of VFP. Am I (1) undersanding that wrongly or (2) underestimating the problems I will getting into?

Having a COM based application does not give you a client-server application. Client-server is really based on a client application that accesses a backend type database (SQL Server, Oracle, etc). The use of COM objects *can* give you a multi tier application, but if you don't need it, there's no reason to do it.

>
>You see, what I believe to be my framework accesses the dbc only from bzobjects that I could include in an .exe that would run on the server, and my (sowhat thinnner) clients woudl then instantiate the objects and retrieve the info in ad hoc properties.
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>Tell me if my mid term strategy is doable.

Your strategy is doable, but I do not think it will perform. And for the amount of time, trouble, support, you are going to have to go through... for the cost of a server - you can have everything you need.

This is the problem I run into all the time - and I do not mean this in a bad way - but most programmers always try to *program* everything even when the solution may not need programming. From what you describe, you have a running application wtitten in VFP - and you need to give access to outside users to run the program. The solution to me is a simple one - thin client.

Good luck with whatever solution you choose!