Excellently stated. I wish I had been able to come up with these exact arguments a year ago when one of our major projects started down the object database path. Now... we're expecting their delivery in about a year and no one has a clue how we're going to integrate it with all the other systems. It was developed with the idea that integration wasn't a need for the initial delivery and therefore, no integration points at all. It's going to be the perfect silo, but instead of making it more useful to the enterprise, it will be less useful. Fun times ahead. Thanks for posting such a concise summary of the issues.