Can anyone, please, enlighten me on the advantages and disadvantages of
this policy?  Or direct me to some websites where I can find some objective
discussions on the pros and cons of this policy?

Many thanks.

Jean Chang

It's now easier to have Excel and Word documents that automatically update
themselves from a database, for example. Of course, it also makes it easy
for hackers, crackers, and clueless lusers to really make a mess!

--

WARNING: I cannot be held responsible for the above        They're   coming  to
because  my cats have  apparently  learned to type.        take me away, ha ha!

A huge advantage for me is in using COM components.  I can create a COM
component (say a security layer, with user management) and drop it into any
COM-compliant development environment (Visul Studio stuff, Delphi, MS Office,
ASP web pages, Director, etc).  I can (theoretically, haven't tried this yet)
create an MS Word or Excel doc which makes you login and doesn't give you
access unless you do.  Additionally, it can customize itself to its user's
security privelages and ensure they don't get the wrong information.

For instance, one could create a customized, printable "news" page from our
events database.  One could get access to a dynamically-updated (pulled from
our databases) excel report with graphical charts and various other
information.  If for some odd reason, I wanted to create an Access front end
for our legacy systems, I could do that easily as well (using the COM
components which now drive the legacy systems).

The list continues...but lunch is over now.  =(

-Curtis Spendlove
-Solstice Software