I have a web page that allows users to process a certain number of 
records.  Rather than performing a real-time send of emails, my web page 
dumps the details into a sql server 2000 database via a stored procedure 
for batch processing.

I have written a small visual basic 6 program that is running on my 
server that polls the database table every 30 seconds and, depending on 
what it finds (if anything) it kicks into a subroutine to process 
records, update tables and kick out emails & sms messages.  Works okay-
ish but I'm concerned over the performance and stability of the system 
and wondered if anyone could offer any tips.

I've noticed when watching the VB program (it does a simple 'timer' that 
waits 30 seconds then checks) that when it does the processing, it can 
take 8-10 seconds to read 3 records from the SQL 2K table and send the 
messages out...  it just doesn't seem that efficient and I was wondering 
if either Visual C++ would be any quicker or whether there was some way 
to do it through SQL triggers?  Only problem with Triggers is that the 
system needs to use some external dll's for interfacing with a mobile 
phone and also do http encoding and sends for emails/messages and I don't 
know whether T-SQL can do that?