I am in the initial stages of deciding on an implementation/design scheme for a database. I have looked for information using google, etc., and got some information, but not really enough. If there is someone who has experience with databases who has a few minutes to answer a few questions it would be greatly appreciated. First I will try to describe what this database is trying to accomplish:

- first of all, the user base will be small by today's standards. there will be probably no more than 50 people accessing this database. possibly more in the future, but not immediately.

- the actual data being stored is relatively small (mostly text/numerical values, possibly some small pictures).

- the users will not necessarily be trying to find certain data entries! this is important! it needs to be able to find specified entries, but more so, users will be concerned with the relationships between entries (i.e. "what other entries have similar/identical values for StartDate to this entry?").

- users will be accessing this database over a secure connection to a LAN.

I can write C++/Win32api software that will store this information, access, and search info, and link relationships between this data, and allow an administrator to set access rights, or define how the searches return information.

My Question: Considering that many of the users may be mostly computer illiterate, and will not understand how a complex application works, should I learn how to implement a standard type of database (by standard I mean an Access db, mySQL, etc.), or should I just write my own implementation and tailor it specifically to this need? so in other words, based on the specifications, will a standard db implementation work, or should i write one?