[Q] Informix's DBACCESS and other questions

I have a question for people who are developing applications on Informix and utilizing them as a client/server. Any help would be much appreciated. We have an Informix-Online 5.01 on SCO UNIX. It runs a propritery software written on ESQL-C, for which we have a run time version. The machine was standalone, but we have put it on Ethernet. The reason was to utilize the records in the database to help locate employees in an emergency. In case I have not mentioned it, the software is a secure system for a site and keeps track of employees IN/OUT proceedings. This is my dilemna, we don't have I-STAR on the server, neither do we have any development packages on the SCO box. So to save money I opted for MSACCESS and Openlink ODBC 32 bit drivers running on NT, thereby implmenting a small client/server (there were other reasons for it, the sites friendliness to these products and the migration to NT). My question is, how powerful is DBACCESS? I realize that I have a field with around 1100 records and I need to compare it with another column, get the difference and send out the relevant information to the client. The only reason I want to keep it local to the Informix server is because of the ODBC drivers, I have heard that they are slow (although I have not yet gotten my hands on them). ANy ideas? Should I just use access or Visaul basic on the client's side? Using C is an option that I have not explored, I have not had much experience with Dbase programming. I would really appreciate help on this from all you Informix Gurus (Okay, so a little brown nosing can't hurt :)) Thanks in advance Saqib Mausoof