>What are the rules for using SPT or Remote views?
A major advantage of SPT is that you don't need to have a DBC (or any non database file other than your exe). This can make it a lot easier to configure your application on a WAN.

If you do go the SPT route write your own SQL function so that is need be you can compensate for differences between different databases (Oracle, SQL server, MySQL etc). We do this for an aplication that must support native VFP, MS SQL and Oracle. I suspect you will always need to use SPT for some aspects of your application (eg database maintenance, bulk copy/delete) - if you are starting from scratch I would try to go this route for everything.