If you are running enterprise edition you could look at table partioning

http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/ms345146(SQL.90).aspx

The way you describe you situation it seems as though each user is responsible for changing their own subset...

You may want to look putting your data into a OLAP structure for reporting, as a table with 400 columns and 249 indexes is never going to perform well.

SQL server 2005 has a max number of NC indexes of 249 so you can't have 400 indexes.

even though the pratical limit is much lower i would not recommend having...

The easiest way is to right click on the database then click on Tasks.. then Import data.. and then follow the wizard..

You can view the collation of the column by using

SELECT TABLE_NAME, COLUMN_NAME, COLLATION_NAME FROM INFORMATION_SCHEMA.columns

This will show you what the collation of the column is, but as collation is concerned...

replication could work here, but with ten seperate databases replicating I would not recommend it.

Why do you want each user to work from their own copy of the database?...

Also be aware that SSIS lookup is by default case-sensitive , there are work-arounds available, So you may not get the same results as a Left-Join

What is the reason for running in Simple mode, I would have thought that a database of this size and activity...

As far as machine specs I would say go for as large as your budget will allow.

And are you sure you want to be runnning your 500gb database with 800...

have a look at MS best pratice for Storage I/O for some tips on tuning your hardware..

http://technet.microsoft.com/en-gb/library/cc966534.aspx

It depends whether the mobile device is connected to the internet?

If so I would use one central database and develop custom pages that can be viewed in the mobile device...

this query will work with the data supplied and also incases where the max version and max id are not on the same row

SELECT TableA.id, TableA.name, TableA.version from TableA

...

As mentioned I would use an update with case statement;

UPDATE dbo.sipFTdataStage

SET net_price =

(CASE

WHEN id_promotionSub IN (1,2) THEN initial_price - monetary_value

WHEN id_promotionSub IN (3,4) THEN...

The problem is that your sub-query is returning more than one value so it cannot resolve to equal 5

eg.

while (select id_promotionSub FROM dbo.sipFTdataStage)=5

can return a list of...

If it is just Column 4 + 5 that you want to get rid of, then just un-tick them in the columns tab of your data source and then they...