BTW: Anyone here concerned over SIMS 'upgrade to microsoft or else' type policy?

I have a meeting with them tomorrow to discuss thier so called upgrade path - i'd value any comments you may have.

Just spent 10k on Two replacement servers and Novell School Agreement ( Netware 6 ), I am not happy with having to buy a win 2k server and all the associated access licences for that too (especially with the new confusing MS Schools Agreement). Capita have got us all by the short an curlys, SIMS ( Dbase4 ) is a real piece of crap. Moving to SQL back end is a good move, but limiting the platform to MS-SQL is forcing schools to do things they don't wan to. We are fortunate/unfortunate in that our local council run I.T services that provide SIMS support to schools were bought out by Capita last year. On one hand we have service that is more able to work with Capita ES, but are also now more biased in their responses to queries and criticisms of SIMS. I am also worried that the first module is 1 year late, and that they hope to have all modules on line by next year. We are going to wait to see if there are any major issues/problems. ( It also gives us a little time to save for another new server.) If it works, works well and requires little input from me then I will be happy in the end. It will be a waste of a file server just running SQL but I am not switching my NOS just for sims. Robin St Aidan's Carlisle.