I save my datasets to xml files; works fairly well -- there are build-in
methods in .NET CF to handle xml file read/write. No file format
conversion needed between PPC and other desktop platforms.
Besides SQL Server, Sybase, DB2 and Oracle have versions compatible with
CF 1.0. Sybase ASA is also compatible with CF 2.0.
AFAIK, from these, SQL Server 2.0 & 3.0 are the only which are free to use
on the PDAs if their is no conectivity to a SQL Server 2000/2005 using direct
connection, merge replication or RDA.