Access's Future

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Spudnik

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Hello,

Does anyone know if the rumor I heard which is: Access is going away.

Is this true?
 
Source of such info???
 
A co-worker who wants me to move my projects to Excel. And I wanted to do my homework before I responded to her.

Thanks
 
Spudnik said:
A co-worker who wants me to move my projects to Excel. And I wanted to do my homework before I responded to her.

Thanks
Click to expand...

LOL, Access and Excel are for totally different needs, if she had suggested a DB. System she might have retained an iota of credibility.

Brian
 
FYI, moved thread out of introductions. As to the subject, I doubt there would be an Access team within Microsoft diligently working on new features if the product was going away in the foreseeable future. ;)
 
AccessBlaster said:
One thing I notice is the placement of Access within the different suites. It appears to me that Access is the least promoted. In most suites its not even offered. OneNote seems to be more prominent then Access, and I don't know anyone who uses OneNote.
Click to expand...

Pray tell what is OneNote? Have never used it and don't really know if I need it. Probably not. Going to stick to Access.
 
Access and access type applications are not going anywhere

Excel pretty much has no support for the following

Creation of records (you create cells that are not linked to other cells)
Deletion of records (likewise as above)
Multiple users in same file
Updating of records (same there is basically no concept of a record)
Replacement of records
Relational algebra between tables is non existence
Its report writer is poor and needs constant attention.

Yes a spreadsheet is a type of database but it is very much unoptomised for even simple record keeping.

I suspect she spends a lot of time tweaking cells (making them wider narrower ) making pretty reports and constantly inputting the same information.

Don't believe everything you are told
 
When ever we hear the words "spread sheet" and " record it" in the same breath in the office we have a hissy fit... :)
 
When they say "Access" many people really mean "Jet/ACE", i.e. the data file sharing mechanism of MDB/ACCDB files. Jet originates from the days when SQL DBMSs were big, expensive and complex. Jet and like products provided a cheap desktop alternative to a SQL DBMS. That segment has largely vanished, mainly because the market-leading DBMSs now come in versions that are cheaper (usually "free"), extremely easy to install/maintain and provide a far wider range of features out of the box than Jet/ACE ever will. Jet/ACE will probably be around for years but if it ever was going away that would be no bad thing for Access because Access is a much more powerful tool when used with another DBMS than it is with Jet/Ace.

On the other hand, Access as a development platform is a perfectly fine tool if it suits your development needs. It's always going to be a niche product compared to the leading application development platforms. Some of Access's features are dated and have suffered long-term neglect by Microsoft for whom the product isn't a high priority. Access still does many things you would really struggle to do in Excel.

For reasons of security and supportability many IT departments actually don't allow Access applications on production servers. Perhaps your colleague is referring only to the policy at your organization rather than making a general comment on the product itself.
 
Our organization is attempting to move away from Access in general. Unfortunately we have a large number of Access DB's created by staff long gone and nobody really knows what is going on in the background. Most of them do not have a FE/BE setup and are being shared on a network drive (Novell, which does not always play well with Access). Our initial step is to try to create an MS-SQL BE for these. Some day we would like to create web based FE's for these databases. Also we do not really have staff trained properly to support the Access DB's. I know a few things about Access, but not really that much.
 
ButtonMoon said:
For reasons of security and supportability many IT departments actually don't allow Access applications on production servers. Perhaps your colleague is referring only to the policy at your organization rather than making a general comment on the product itself.
Click to expand...

This is exactly what I was thinking when I read the original post. My company announced years ago we were no longer supporting or creating Access databases. Of course, announcing something and actually having the capacity to replace all of the databases out there are two different things entirely.
 
kevlray said:
Our organization is attempting to move away from Access in general. Unfortunately we have a large number of Access DB's created by staff long gone and nobody really knows what is going on in the background. Most of them do not have a FE/BE setup and are being shared on a network drive (Novell, which does not always play well with Access). Our initial step is to try to create an MS-SQL BE for these. Some day we would like to create web based FE's for these databases. Also we do not really have staff trained properly to support the Access DB's. I know a few things about Access, but not really that much.
Click to expand...

Yes but the technology is not the problem - you probably have processes built in other systems that are probably just as awkward. In fact what technology is not subject to problems if designers leave.

The number of people that understand something about access seems to be a lot higher than most other technologies. Someone just needs to step up to the mark and take responsibilities - best coming from the departments responsible for the information to my mind. They have the most to benefit and the most to lose.
 
I have to say making a career out of access, would be as silly as making a career out of say excel.

I know there will always be a specialist market who can get good money doing either. But really they are mostly used a tools for averagely competent admin type staff.

SQL, ORACLE back ends, and some kind of web front and available on all kinds of platforms are the way forward.

If you were advising a kids starting out, or a uni graduate - access is no more than a quick step on to something you can actually make a decent bit of money working with.

I don't think that will be a popular idea on here.
 
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