I like using Access for its simplicity. But nowadays I extract a subset of data from a more robust database so I can run quick queries and create charts and graphs. But agreed its not by any means a Big Data solution!

Thanks for the comment! There are many lightweight tools that will allow you to easily query/filter data and create charts/graphs directly to your database. No need to extract a data subset!

Agreed

Dear Isaac. Your reply to jollyrogerfl above simply shows how much hatred and bias you have for msaccess. Access is meant for a purpose and it fulfills that purpose very well. No one here has said access should be used to build a mainstream banking application to handles millions of transactions per minute.

I have built a Payroll & HR solution that is used by most outsourcing companies here in my country Nigeria using Access. My solution processes the payroll of 25,000 employees in less than 5 minutes and gets all the computations done and reports ready. The question is how many organisations have more than 25,000 employees in the world. In essence my solution can handle the payroll of even some of the largest corporations in the world. Please use Access wisely and for the purpose it is meant. Thank you.

I am a bit late finding this post, like a year late, but I am going to submit my comment anyway so that people who stumble across this site like I did are not misled by this nonsense.

To start with, you are approaching this from a flawed understanding of successful businesses. All IT people nowadays seem to think that you’re just better off investing huge sums of money to “do things right” or to save the up front investment and go with a SaaS solution. This often requires taking a “revenue stream” approach to business rather than a “reinvestment of capital” approach. Unfortunately, that whole business model is a terrible idea for most businesses. Apparently America is going to have to learn this lesson the hard way. Additionally, it is extremely important for small businesses to have complete ownership of their tools, because the need to cut expenses may be right around the corner, and the less fixed costs you have, the better chance you have to survive the rough times.

So, with that said, contrary to what you claim there are very few, if any, “lightweight” tools that will allow you to accomplish what Access can. Most of the tools available today rely upon layers and layers of software, APIs, web servers, database servers, frameworks, and the list goes on and on. Plus it all has to be configured correctly. This is not what most people, especially those with ZERO IT staff, and very little extra cash, consider to be “lightweight.”

So what is it that Access can do that other tools can’t?

To start with, there is one thing that Access can do that very very VERY few other applications can do…and that is link to data tables from huge variety of different sources and allow you to write SQL statements joining those tables without jumping through any hoops. I have Access apps that link to PostgreSQL, ProvideX (database for Sage 100 ERP), and SQL Server and use the data as if it were in one database. SQL Server has linked tables, but there are limitations and you cannot always easily refer to fields in those tables easily.

In addition, you can then use those tables or resulting views in databound forms and controls. This makes it great for creating front ends for specific business tasks that follow business processes which companies are unable or sometimes unwilling to change to adapt to software restrictions. It is SIGNIFICANTLY easier for business people to develop forms that are bound than it is to populate unbound forms with data at runtime.

You can then provide access to these tools and this data at MUCH MUCH lower licensing costs and FAR easier deployment. You don’t get much easier than throwing an MDB file up on a terminal server.

So, you clearly live in a very different world. You clearly are very immersed in I.T., but disconnected from the rest of the business world. That disconnection is why I.T. is such a risk for so many unsuspecting small companies.

Matthew – Thanks for the reply. I realize that some developers might have alternate views on this technology and approach to database development.

What I can tell you definitively is that when organizations rely on developing problem specific Access db’s over a long period of time, it makes it very difficult to unwind and create a more holistic data strategy. Unfortunately, I’ve seen it too often and what looks like simple investments to solve a business problem becomes difficult to work with especially for businesses where data assets are critical. Over time, linking databases actually makes the problem worse because it’s hard for others to understand all the dependencies between databases and data sources.

There are many lightweight alternatives – mostly SaaS and PaaS solutions that compete with Access. They too have issues if you make too many dbs that are point solutions or have other inherit complexities, but offer the same RAD (and often better) capabilities of Access. Have a look at Quickbase and Force.com and the link below for additional details

http://www.nten.org/articles/2012/do-it-yourself-cloud-databases

Also, this post on my blog might interest you

http://blogs.starcio.com/2014/07/paas-cloud-agility.html

Isaac,
You obviously have not learned from the comments in your previous blog. Many people gave you great insight and time to train you.
Your response in this blog shows you are narrow-minded and that makes you a bit dangerous in blogging.
I follow good thinking and your response above is not good thinking or respectful to those that spent a great deal of time responding to your first post.
I am disappointed and no longer will follow you.
Good bye.

Sorry to disapoint you. Not sure what comments you are referring to specifically, but I expect and publish those who have differences in opinion.

These posts are about establishing a data strategy that often requires organizations to connect and develop data relationships between their core entities and sources. Harder to do this if developers are still building single purpose databases for single apps, even if links are used.

There are plenty of times when a single db is appropriate, but for those situations I recommend looking at Cloud/SaaS db platforms as a service.

As a lawyer who is beginning to truly learn the power of Access, I’m astonished by all these comments.

If all I need is a local database, not expected to connect over a network, that can control Word (to write automatically generated documents) and Outlook (to send automatically e-mail), then Access is the tool. I can’t afford to lose years of my life trying to learn NoSQL when, well, tomorrow will be Monday, I have tasks to automate and ready-made solutions to sell.

Of course, I won’t be missing my NoSQL classes, but when I need to nail some nails into wood, I’m going to use a hammer, not a sledgehammer (Visual Studio), not my shoe (which would be Excel in this analogy) and certainly not a nailing robot (a full MySQL server with a web frontend)