[AccessD] AXP mde fe / be to fe / MSDE

Hi,
 
I'm looking to get my feet wet in MS SQL Server.
 
I've got an Access XP mde fe/be using A2K file format that is used for sales reports. There are three users; one all the time, the others occasionally. There is talk of creating a web front end for the 45 remote sales people. This seemed to me to be a potential project for getting some experience with the MSDE. That would leave me ready to move to SQL Server.
 
To get a simple start, I thought I would just replace the back end with MSDE and link with ODBE. How does this work out in practice - especially from a deployment and development standpoint? Has anyone tried this? If I got this going, I thought I could try some pass through queries. Is this a good way to start with SQL Server?
 
Thanks,
 
Eric