The future of Access

[vhung]

Was it this one? There's only three votes. Was one of them yours?

Site Deactivated – Welcome to Access Suggestion Box!

yes sir
>i try to post that one, just this day
>3 votes with my cast

 

[The_Doc_Man]

as well as a new date/time datatype (with greater range and increased precision).

Interesting. But unless they want to change the formatting routines, they already have enough precision in a DOUBLE datatype (which is what they use as a typecast for date/time variables) to represent dates from 1-Jan-100 to 31-Dec-9999 and in that range they can show times to the second. In contemporary dates, they could easily show times to the millisecond.

 

[pbaldy]

Basically, where is Access headed?

I haven't noticed this being posted:

Microsoft 365 Roadmap | Microsoft 365

 

[AccessBlaster]

Access is not central to their strategy, screen shot taken from pbaldy's link

 

[Isaac]

The corporate world is now nauseatingly obsessed with Teams. I swear I hear and read about it every 5 minutes. Of course we already had Outlook, Lync, Skype for Business, and Webex. Teams is the shiny new toy now.

Most enjoyable and effective group chat tool I ever used - SLACK.

 

[AccessBlaster]

The corporate world is now nauseatingly obsessed with Teams. I swear I hear and read about it every 5 minutes. Of course we already had Outlook, Lync and Skype for Business, and Webex. Teams is the shiny new toy now.

Most enjoyable and effective group chat tool I ever used - SLACK.

Yes, the model is stay at home and be safe. What better way to do this?

 

[Isaac]

Yes, the model is stay at home and be safe. What better way to do this?

You mean Teams helps people at my company stay at home and be safe better than the tools we already had that did the identical functions? I'm not seeing it. To me it's just another redundant tool, as corporate folks roll out every so often..Then again, it's Monday, and I'm grumpy.

 

[Isaac]

Slack's encouraging the constant stream-of-content can be a little much.

 

[CJ_London]

changing the subject slightly, I would like to see improvements to the form and report design capabilities

1. Formatting functionality (shapes/styles) for buttons replicated for textboxes, labels and rectangles, perhaps others.
2. Option to resize and format check and option boxes
3. The option for a line to include an arrowhead and perhaps flight. aka shapes in excel/word.
4. The ability to map one control to another (similar to labels mapping to controls) but with the ability to choose which corner maps to which corner

I have workarounds for all of these but it would make life easier

I'm still using 2010 so perhaps some of these have been addressed in later versions?

 

[NauticalGent]

...it's Monday, and I'm grumpy.

I can not and will not throw that stone

 

[strive4peace]

@JohnPapa,

on where Access is headed, here is a roadmap:
https://www.microsoft.com/en-us/microsoft-365/roadmap?filters=Access

I wouldn't be surprised if 2019 only works with Windows 10. On older versions ... even though support is gone for them, they still work. I have a dual installation with 2007 and 365, and both work just fine. Some of my clients are on 2003 and even lower versions! Ocassionally I help someone who is still using Access 97!

Just because the Access icon is often left out, as is Access, I wouldn't be worried about it going away anytime soon. That's been the gossip since Access 2000! The Access team is dedicated to listening and enhancing the product. They watch UserVoice too, which gives those who aren't MVPs a way to interact with the Access team.

Access UserVoice
https://access.uservoice.com/forums/319956-access-desktop-application

 

[NauticalGent]

Rather than start a new thread, I'll post these links here. I came across these yesterday and today while making my rounds...

What’s Is Access’ Position: Thriving, Alive, Dying, Dead?

How is Access doing in the world today? Is it Alive and well, a dying dodo or already dead. Does this 30+ year old product have much longer to live?

www.devhut.net

https://nolongerset.com/state-of-access-2021/

(from AWF Member @NoLongerSet)

Great insight and opinions...

 

[AccessBlaster]

Microsoft promotes everything except Access. It's alive but on life support maintained by the community.

 

[Isaac]

Rather than start a new thread, I'll post these links here. I came across these yesterday and today while making my rounds...

What’s Is Access’ Position: Thriving, Alive, Dying, Dead?

How is Access doing in the world today? Is it Alive and well, a dying dodo or already dead. Does this 30+ year old product have much longer to live?

www.devhut.net

https://nolongerset.com/state-of-access-2021/

(from AWF Member @NoLongerSet)

Great insight and opinions...

I like Mike Wolfe's response, got nothin' to add on it, it's perfect, but will just call out this incredibly succinct summary of what my view on the Access world is........OK, I suppose I might add in some more emphasis on why I think it would be prudent for people whose main bread and butter is developing Access in the corporate world....to begin learning Power Apps, but that's it.

Access holds zero appeal for young software developers. No Silicon Valley VC is going to invest in your Access-based software product. It doesn't scale the way a web-based SaaS does. There will always be a ceiling on how much leverage you can generate selling an Access-based business-to-consumer product that does not exist with web applications.

BUT, if you are a competent Microsoft Access developer, you will have no shortage of custom desktop software projects to build (and maintain). I think it's safe to say there are 100s of thousands (if not millions) of critical business applications running in Microsoft Access today. And there is simply no other product available that offers a seamless migration option for a front-end Access application. In fact, Microsoft practically guaranteed that would be the case when they broke VBx backward compatibility in their move to VB.Net.

 

[oleronesoftwares]

its a wrong assumption, but it is because the earliest apps that allowed for data storage used online database, until recently when offline databases like SQLite that allows for offline storage came on board

 

[gemma-the-husky]

Access is in the unenviable position of having a popular product with a niche market and they can't easily replace it. In fact, it is probably why Access 64-bit didn't take advantage of extra addressing space. First, the re-write costs would be incredible. Second, It would be incredibly embarrassing for them to have a product that could seriously compete with SQL Server in terms of capacity.

I would have thought it enviable, rather than unenviable.

 

[isladogs]

Access is in the unenviable position of having a popular product with a niche market and they can't easily replace it. In fact, it is probably why Access 64-bit didn't take advantage of extra addressing space. First, the re-write costs would be incredible. Second, It would be incredibly embarrassing for them to have a product that could seriously compete with SQL Server in terms of capacity.

I meant to respond to this at the time you posted last year but have been prompted by the last post by @gemma-the-husky .
MS still have enabling large address awareness (LAA) listed in their 365 roadmap though again delayed for another year

I have used the LAA enabling code provided by Philipp Stiefel with significant success. See The /LARGEADDRESSAWARE (LAA) flag - Remedy for out-of-memory errors - Codekabinett

Enabling LAA will allow certain actions demanding large processing capacity to run faster or succeed when they currently fail.
However it will have no effect on the maximum total size of Access files. It will in no way impact on SQL Server