Future of Access (3 Viewers)

[BlueSpruce]

Hello Everyone,

I had recently joined the UtterAccess forum and unfortunately that site was permanently shutdown without any advance warning. I am a team member of four Access developers and we are concerned about the stability and future of Access.

 

[Jon]

Welcome to Access World! We're so happy to have you join us as a member of our community. As the most active Microsoft Access discussion forum on the internet, with posts dating back more than 20 years, we have a wealth of knowledge and experience to share with you.

We're a friendly and helpful community, so don't hesitate to ask any questions you have or share your own experiences with Access. We're here to support you and help you get the most out of this powerful database program.

To get started, we recommend reading the post linked below. It contains important information for all new users of the forum:

https://www.access-programmers.co.uk/forums/threads/new-member-read-me-first.223250/

We hope you have a great time participating in the discussion and learning from other Access enthusiasts. We look forward to having you around!

 

[theDBguy]

Hi. Welcome to AWF!

 

[Pat Hartman]

Bruce, Access has been around since the early 90's. It's had a long run as a development platform and there is still nothing better for desktop development. One never knows what MS will do in the future but without a viable replacement, MS will probably not stop development any time soon. You should have a few years advance notice if/when development will stop and then a few years after that before support stops. So, there is nothing imminent.

 

[NauticalGent]

Welcome aboard!

UA's demise and the future of Access have nothing to do with each other.

 

[BlueSpruce]

One never knows what MS will do in the future but without a viable replacement, MS will probably not stop development any time soon.

I think MS will never retire Access because many government agencies and private enterprises have Access applications running for several decades, and the time and cost to convert them to web applications is significant.

 

[NauticalGent]

I think MS will never retire Access because many government agencies and private enterprises have Access applications running for several decades, and the time and cost to convert them to web applications is significant.

All good points, I would add that there is simply no single source replacement, and since just about EVERY work station on the government workstations already HAVE Access, the decision is really a no-brainer.

 

[BlueSpruce]

We are also concerned that for security purposes, Microsoft will restrict VBA from being able to manipulate the Windows Filesystem, e.g. FSO, Shell Commands, Automation, etc. Web Applications are stateless with no binding. That was main reason for Classic Outlook being replaced with webmail Outlook. VBA cannot automate webmail.

 

[AccessBlaster]

Yeah, pretty much every government workstation has a copy of Access preinstalled, but hardly anyone knows what it actually is let alone how to program with it. And when it comes to IT departments, they're almost universally against because of it ability to run automated.

 

[NauticalGent]

they're almost universally against because of it ability to run automated.

As are ALL Office products, but what do we know??

 

[AccessBlaster]

As are ALL Office products, but what do we know??

The member of the suite they fear most is the one they understand least.

 

[BlueSpruce]

pretty much every government workstation has a copy of Access preinstalled, but hardly anyone knows what it actually is let alone how to program with it. And when it comes to IT departments, they're almost universally against because of it ability to run automated.

Despite the lack of familiarity with Access, and IT's not liking it, I know for a fact that several State an Federal agencies have thousands of departamental Access applications running since the 1990's and they have upgraded them throughout time, e.g. converting from mdb's to accdb's, streamlining and adding more functionality, etc. and IT's have no choice but to swallow that pill. About the only trend I have seen happening is to migrate the native Access backends to MultiTenant db servers, like SQL Server so IT can have centralized control of the data.

 

[The_Doc_Man]

Every so often we hear the "Access is going away" comments, then they die down as a new version of Office gets released and Access is still available. There will probably be some limitations on new features in Access, because if MS does TOO MUCH to make it nicer, it will start to compete with SQL Lite.

 

[Pat Hartman]

There will probably be some limitations on new features in Access, because if MS does TOO MUCH to make it nicer, it will start to compete with SQL Lite.

That is exactly the problem the SQL Server people see and why they perpetually bad mouth Access. They think of Jet/ACE as competitors and never understand that Access is a RAD tool that builds interfaces and is NOT a database engine. Jet and ACE are database engines. I know you know that but even you equate Access the RAD tool with SQL Server.

As far as SQL Server is concerned, they should be thinking of Access the RAD tool as a complementary tool and not as a competitor. The fact that they don't tells us that MS doesn't market Access, the RAD tool correctly.