Access Licence

[nst]

Hi, I have a 5 PCs LAN and there is an Access application built in one of them. Do I need 5 Licences of Access in oder to read data from that particular application/database? Does this mean that we have to buy 5 times the same product or is there another cheaper way?
Thanks for any reply.

 

[neileg]

If you want to run the application on any PC then Access will need to be installed on that PC. That suggests you will need 5 copies of Access. It is possible to use another product, eg MSQuery, to interrogate the data and return it to, say, Excel, but that's not the same thing.

You can buy a developers version of Access which will allow you to distribute a run time version of Access, but that won't be cheaper than buying the 4 extra copies of Access

 

[nst]

Well, thanks. Rather an expensive solution if you have many pcs. It's better to write an App which should query the mdb file and let one user insert and delete data, by using Access's interface.

 

[neileg]

Depends what you think of as expensive. Most 'commercial strength' Access applications will cost far more in developer time than the cost of the licenses. If you have lots of PCs (we have about 3,500) you get an enterprise licence.

If your application is very simple, then Access may not be the most cost effective development medium.

 

[nst]

Depends what you think of as expensive. Most 'commercial strength' Access applications will cost far more in developer time than the cost of the licenses. If you have lots of PCs (we have about 3,500) you get an enterprise licence.

If your application is very simple, then Access may not be the most cost effective development medium.

What would you suggest instead?

 

[neileg]

Access is effectively free for us, we get it whether we want it or not. For larger applications we use Oracle.

Without knowing what your application is, how can I tell. Plus, I don't have much experience of anything else given the comments above. However there are cheaper or free database evironments. Star Office springs to mind.

 

[nst]

No. If you have a need of more than 4 licenses, you would purchase the developers edition for your version of Access. That would give you an INFINITE number of installs so it is in fact quite cost effective.

The developer's edition for A2003 is called Visual Studio Tools for the Microsoft Office System. It includes lots of other expensive software such as VB.Net and SQL Server. It costs around $500 but can be purchased for around $110 if you are a student or teacher.

I found a separate distribution of Access for 250 Euros. Considering what you write above, it shouldn't be possible.

 

[nst]

You wrote

No. If you have a need of more than 4 licenses, you would purchase the developers edition for your version of Access.

Considering that Access alone costs $200 and developers edition $500, I see that it is a bargain if you need more than even 2 licences and not 4.

In that case it is really reasonable and I will search for it. Thanks a lot.