A Zim Client-Server application can be developed as a stand-alone standard Zim application on any supported platform. Once developed, the application can be moved easily to another platform and configured to access remote data sources. Because of this capability, Zim enables you to separate your application from the ultimate data source, enabling development to be done independently of the target database management system or platform. Zim lets you perform application development and testing off-line on a stand-alone PC, a portable, or a workstation and then implement the production application on a Zim database, an SQL database, or a combination of both. This reduces the demands on your environment, including your SQL database. This portability lets you perform your development and testing on one hardware platform and implement as a client application on a completely different platform.

Zim applications can process data stored in more than one location. Database servers often become performance bottlenecks because data is located in one area and the server cannot handle the processing load for that data. Zim avoids this bottleneck by letting you distribute or partition data elements across both the database server and the Zim databases. This gives you the power to balance the load on your network. By off-loading data from your server, Zim boosts performance by lowering server demand.

Client-Server database application development with Zim provides application portability to database servers. An application written for a particular server can be migrated to another server without changes to the application. Zim portability lets you adopt new technologies as they emerge.

Zim lets clients on different platforms run the same application against the same database server concurrently. Clients can be moved to other platforms.  The client platforms for an application can be mixed and matched, as required.

Zim provides a universal interface to database servers. Zim still enables you to access the unique features and strengths inherent in any database server by taking advantage of proprietary extensions of the SQL dialect. Zim syntax supports any SQL database in an optimal way.

Zim enables you to test your applications interpretively, without compiling first.