The Borland Database Engine was for many Delphi applications long a pragmatic route to database access. Today, in established environments, it is often more of a risk: legacy dependencies, difficult deployment, fragile configuration and unnecessary operational failure points.
In many cases, the better approach is native database connectivity. That enables the use of modern drivers, clean transactions, more controllable connections and a maintainable architecture, without having to discard the existing logic immediately.
In practice it is not just about swapping a component library. Typically, SQL access must be reviewed, data types cleaned up, character sets clarified, indexes revised and behavior under concurrent multi-user load re-evaluated. That is precisely where the actual technical value of such a modernization lies.
If this step is planned carefully, an old Delphi application will gain significant operational lifetime. It becomes more robust in operation, easier to deploy and better prepared to integrate with APIs, web portals or subsequent modernization steps.