Sorry, but Gutpa Corporation seems very difficult to find on the net, and there are no refrences to Gutpas SQL that I can find!

Rather than jumping to the selection of a database language and/or system for a small to medium business you should be identifying your business requirements first.

Don't put the technology decision ahead of your business requirements decision.

Too many times I have seen clients eventually lamenting having made business-critical application decisions based on the knowledge (and thereby limits) of their in-house staff, their own limited "visibility" of options, and/or salesman recommendations and promises.

Additionally the question of "create it yourself" or purchase it "off-the-shelf" needs to be carefully considered. Along with all of its associated delivery timelines and costs (anticipated or not - today and future).

Typically the best place to begin is with a Business Profile or your entire organization. From that you will better understand what the information needs are today and hopefully you will be better informed as to future needs and/or "wish list" issues which need to be taken into consideration.

If you should decide to create the application in-house, you consider the availability of programming/support personnel. Despite some technology being superior to the task, if the number of people being available to use for development and for post-installation support is limited, you might be wise to look at other technologies.

Good Luck,
JRB
VisionQuest Consulting
Business Analyst & CIO Consulting Services
CIOServices@Yahoo.com

:cool: Yep, all very well and good, but that doesn't make the downloads any smaller.

I know what I want a database to do. I can do quite complex operations in Access, but I would like to look at scalable desktop alternatives - hence evaluation software.

Anyway, thanks for the posting :-)

Dekker -

Let me muddy the waters a bit. If you are going to have a high number of concurrent users hammering at the DB, then you should look at mySQL (www.mysql.com). It's free, fast, and works with Apache (free) and PHP (free). Many commercial websites use it. It can be configured to use Berkley DB, ISAM and innoDB tables. I've created VB6 frontends with ADO2.5 using its ISAM tables and ODBC driver on WIN9X systems. What's nice is that you can create your tables in MSAccess and import both data and structure almost directly. You can expand stand-alone systems into networked versions with few changes. Its available for many O/S, such as Lenux, as are OLEDB providers and system admininstrative utilities, all online and for free.

Thanks vududoc - I'm thinking of giving mySQL a try. Iknow it has limitations with sub queries, but what the heck, I'm sure I can get round them!

I'll try to keep you posted:)

What about Alpha Five Software. It is a inexpensive database that is loaded with features. The only thing I see wrong is that it not for Linux as yet.

Excellent point, papabear46 I used Alpha4 years ago when it was given away free on a cover disk. I was reliable, fast and quite challenging to code (that was my first introduction to databases).

Since then Alpha seems to have disappeared from the UK market. It's not surprising that the current name is Alpha5. I'll try looking at it when I've had a go at mySQL.