Ron, Thank you for your valuable reply.

I do agree with you, and I think my decision will be to start with MSDE2000, keeping the chance to upgrade to MSSQL Server, till the customer have a data with as 2GB size then it means he has something to warry about so in that case he will start thinking of buying MSSQL Server and pay some more. :)

ADSC


>My two cents worth would be if I was not worried about 2 gig file size for database and throttling down effect of MSDE I would use MSDE. Taking into consideration that I could easily migrate upwards to SQL to overcome these obstacles at any future time if need be.
>
>The interface to the MSDE server can be overcome by buying a dev version of SQL Server (499.00) and then using MMC that came with that or buying either an enterprise or Architect version of .net and again getting MMC. There may be concerns about having a developer license for the MMC and using against a production MSDE Server. I don't know.
>
>If these were a problem immediately and budgets will not ever allow for Full SQL Server then I would look at MySQL.
>
>==================
>
>I think the open source stuff has a place but one thing I can speak personally to is this fact. I don't know the market share of MySQL VS SQL Server but I do know SQL is much bigger. Even with the big market share of SQL and all of the internet support avaialable as a result...I have been having a hard time getting some questions answered. I would suspect that you are more likeley to get answers to tough questions easier with SQL than MySQL.
>
>You might also look at your options for paid support from MS VS MySQL. Free is nice but you have to consider how mission critical is this database server going to be. What is the cost of not being able to deal with problems in a short time frame.
>
>==================
>
>Another way to look at it which opposes the above is that MSDE is always going to be throttled back to keep from taking away from SQL Server.
>
>MySQL is not.