At 12/24/2001 09:27 AM (Monday), Duleep wrote:

>I am being asked by one of our sales partners to port an existing FB
>application to sql-2000, as he claims that fb is 'unknown' and not
>scalable (250+ workstations). Can someone comment on this ?

Yes, FB is relatively unknown. Just about everything is better known than
FB at this point.

Yes, it does not scale well beyond 200+ users - provided all those users
are directly accessing the server. (Using an application server in between
the client and the database server would solve this nicely, as it would
with SQL Server.)

Sales people are always looking for ways to close sales easier. Ask the
sales partner if they have documented cases where customers have refused to
buy specifically because of these issues. If so, then give them ammunition
with which to fight back. If not, then tell them to get out there and do
their jobs!

For example, in the case of scalability, what would it cost in terms of
hardware and software licenses to scale SQL Server beyond 250 users? My
guess is that it would be very expensive. now consider if they took that
money and paid you some of it to provide a solution to the scaling problem.
Would you be able to respond and solve the problem?