So, is MS Access on death row or not?

[Administrator]

I thought once upon a time that Access was dead! We are all supposed to migrate to SQL Express (according to Microsoft) as the follow on to Access BECAUSE Access was being discontinued. Well, as you know, it's part of Office System 2007. So is Access really on death row? Or not?

 

[Raven65]

Given the low cost of Access (yes, even considering the recent affordability of SQL) and the ease of table/form design and attachement I doubt we will see Access gone for a long time to come.

Many smaller companies have come to rely on its ease of use far to much for Microsoft to just drop support (seemingly) and many of those self-same companies do not have the knowledge in their workforce or dollars in their budget to shift to SQL. (I've worked at several of the second =\)

 

[vis781]

I'm with Raven on this one, but then i'm totally bias becuase i love Access. I hope we won't see the end of it for some time to come. Sure it can be a bit lumpy when compared to SQL server etc.. and MS's intentions are pretty clear with the integration of SQL server into the IDE. As for now i still use it and it is my database of choice. God Bless MS Access.

 

[Administrator]

I agree, I like Access too, many do and that's why I find it hard to believe it will go away anytime soon. But I seem to recall that was the threat from Microsoft!

To redirect the subject a little, have you looked at Access alternatives? I'm personally looking at VistaDB 3, although still in early to mid CTP stages, it looks really nice! Then there is Firebird, which I've heard of but am not familiar with, SQL Everywhere, ummm now named Compact Edition, which I haven't checked out yet, on and on!

 

[vis781]

I like the look of VistaDB 3, 100 times smaller than MSDE it claims. But besides the size, i like the idea of a managed database. How they have managed to create a database that performs better than MS SQL i'll never know and i'll take that claim with a pinch of salt. I've been looking into it for a while and watching with interest. The proof of the pudding is in the tasting as they say and i have been holding off giving it a go. However they do a free trial and i'm gonna install it tonight and have a play around with it. There look to be a couple of new components to get to grips with to be able to use it but as they are most likely based on the data access components already present in the toolbox it shouldn't be too much trouble. We shall see...........

 

[cjard]

Perhaps Jet will be phased out and Access will sit atop of SQLS.. Access as a name and hence intangible asset, will persist..

 

[TechGnome]

I think ultimately what will happen is that there will be a change in how Access works on the back end. But it will never go away. What I see happening is that the Jet back end gets replaced by the SQL Express (or perhaps the SQL Everywhere) engine, but the interface will have that familiar Access look & feel. IE, the user will/should never notice the difference. But it will never go away completely.

-tg

 

[cjard]

Just read a tibit of info from Neal elsewhere on the forum.. OleDB doesnt work in Vista x64 - it's on death row for sure