More:

> everybody who stored a record had to
> update one particular record - performance degraded geometrically as the
> number of users went up.

Different animal than mine. But, it all it did was say update one field in the
"cumulative" record or whatever it is, that could be done same way in sp called in
wait loop and lock on table with common record. The table is locked, sp called,
commited/unlock and the next one goes. Why would it bring to "grinding halt"?

best regards