It all depends on what you need, of course.

By "newest PC's", what exactly do you mean? It certainly runs just fine on our multi-GHz, multi-
processor rackmount at work ... have you experienced problems on newer hardware? If so, please
report these problems.

I happen to use Firebird under Linux (it's been running smoothly for two years under normal
production load) and under WinXP for development/testing (our client software is for Windows, so we
have plenty of Windows boxes around to run the server on at random.) We've run it under W2k (when
that was the 'next big thing') without a hitch. It worked for me; if it doesn't work for you,
please ask for assistance.

"HT is not supported" -- I suppose you mean that it doesn't use hyperthreading? Does it need to?
Shall we consider this a feature request? I'm sure someone will be interested in this eventually,
it's just a question of allocating time to research and implement. (Remember that Firebird is cross-
platform, both software and hardware: it takes a while to implement new features safely.)

Release candidates are exactly that -- candidates. I don't run them on my production machine, and
I'm actually happy at how long it's taking to release 1.5-final. I'm excited about the new features
coming with 1.5, but I'd rather wait to make sure kinks have been worked out. I'm running 1.5rc4 on
my development machine just to test some of the new features, and see where they can (and will) be
helpful when 1.5-final is out. Were this other development groups, rc8 might have been released as
final without testing again thoroughly. You get what you're willing to wait for.

You're encouraged to look into other database products, to find one that fits your needs. If you
don't need good SQL support, take a look at MySQL. If you want something similar to Firebird, you
might check PostgreSQL -- they have different strengths, you might find Postgres more suited to
your needs. You might also check on SAP-DB -- I've not used it, but it's free and has also
benefitted from commercial backing (that is, money.) Then there are the non-free solutions ...

Or you could give Firebird a spin and see for yourself what you think of it, and come back with
specific questions and complaints. I'm sure everyone here would be glad to help you out in your new
environment.

Firebird is, in fact, a viable and strong product. Ask my users! They haven't had a single occasion
to blame Firebird for any problems, though they've had plenty of chances to blame me or my
programmers (we tend to do the 'release early and often' thing.) It's a solid server with good
performance, features, and logical correctness (just look at how other database servers handle
transactions!) It's also a live project with community support, and it's not going away any time
soon.

Regardless, we wish you the best luck finding a server that meets your needs,
-Unordained