Nice to see that Hiarcs is working on their own format instead of pgn - that would probably increase the search speed and perhaps allow other kinds of searches like structure, material etc. I doubt it would be possible or even legal for them to use ChessBase's cbh-files, but it would probably be possible to convert files to the new format or it to cbh, eventually...
Personally, I don't need so many features so I'd rather try Hiarcs 2.0 than CB 14. Btw - do they still make you put your dvd in the player to authenticate regularly - despite that most laptops these days don't come with dvd-players anymore?
Though it seems strange that Hiarcs are not updating potential customers on how 2.0 is coming along. The website contains a lot of yesterday's news so maybe the big problem is making their own engine more competitive? It can't be easy to compete with Stockfish (and clones!), Komodo, and Houdini.
As long as I would be able to run other engines, Hiarcs 15 isn't a big selling point for me. Have never tried it and it's rarely in the different computer tms so I'm not sure where in the rating list Hiarcs 14 belongs, I'd guess somewhere between 10th and 20th. I doubt that Anand still uses it...
No pressure
but in a year or two it's possible that Lichess will offer more or less everything a chess player needs from a database program, online and for free.