MS-SQL Server 2005 Express Edition - Co-Existence

[Arvindtn]

Hi,

We are developing a desktop product and we are planning to use MS-SQL Server 2005 Express Edition as its free.

I would like to analyze the following deployment situations to analyze if MS-SQL Server 2005 Express Edition would meet it.

Case#1: prospective customer doesn't have any db and wants to either have a centralized DB or de-centralized DB (installed in each desktop). - This would work fine with MS-SQL Server 2005 Express Edition

Case#2: Prospective customer has a database server (could be oracle, sybase, etc) and he may want to leverage it for this desktop product - This would be tricky as i have to ensure that my developers have written a DB neutral query. I want to avoid this situtation

Case#3: Prospective customer has a database server (could be oracle, sybase, etc) and the customer is OK to have a centralized MS-SQL Server 2005 Express Edition database - In this case will there be any problem if I Install MS-SQL Server 2005 Express Edition on a server that has any RDBMS (Oracle, Sybase, Informix, Earlier versions of MS-SQL Server)?

Case#4: Proposective customer has a desktop application that is using MSDE - In this case will there be any problem if i install MS-SQL Server 2005 Express Edition on a desktop that has MSDE?

My Idea is to avoid Case#2 and for all other cases if there are no issues then i would always use MS-SQL Server Express Edition as my Backend.

Thanks & Regards
Arvind T N

[rmiao]

Case#3 and #4: it's ok as long as the server has enough horsepower.