Well I've been trying to find a competing low cost alternative to SQL Server 2000 and I think I have a winner here. MYSQL is an open-source database product that rivals Microsoft's dominance in the database industry. If you're using it for personal use then the cost is free, you just have to abide by the GNU General Public License (GPL). If you want to sell applications that include it then you can purchase a licence that releases you from the GPL at a cost of only $395US. This is an increadable price considering you can have an unlimited number of connections to the server.
All of this was working great with LabVIEW. They have an ODBC driver which you just install and away you go. I've tested the connection with NI's database connectivity toolkit and haven't found any glitches yet.
