Wayne,

>>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.

Don't underestimate the cost of going to thin client, both terminal server and citrix requires client accesslicenses and they are not going cheap. For running them comfortly you'll have to have a well equiped server costing way over a $2000. Keep in mind that here in europe we've suffered from a devaluation of the Euro (compared to $) and you earn $1000 much quicker than we do.


>>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 depends, if you\ll adopt the right strategy, you'll be able to get reasonable performance out of it.

>>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.

That is incorrect, DCOM/COM+ does give you a client/server architecture. Client/server is a name that holds far more that having a SQL server somewhere on the network. DCOM/COM+ components can run on remote servers serving clients connect via a WAN.

>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.

See above, Thin client has more hidden costs.

Walter,