We're a small software company, developing projects for manufacturing facilities about analysis, traceability, reporting etc. We're using Access for front end, SQL Server for back end. We've quite big customers too and our company is growing. So far it is working fine but I wonder should we move to more influential technologies, such as web based solutions. What do you think about the future of Access?
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1They just want programs running smoothly. – Deepak Rama Jun 05 '11 at 15:35
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Nothing's wrong with MS Access as long as you study how to scale properly and do security right. Phillipe has a good answer. – ErikE Jun 05 '11 at 19:23
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You might want to check out https://www.parasql.com – Robert D Nov 16 '16 at 00:48
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Well, keep in mind that Access now has a web option. This option works with SharePoint and the new upcoming office 365. Here is a video of an Access application and note how at the half way point I switch to running the application 100% in a web browser. No ActiveX or Silverlight is required. I even tested and run the application on my iPad.
Video here:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AU4mH0jPntI
And Access 2010 also has baked in support for the Azure (cloud) edition of SQL server.
So, we have web based options, cloud based options, and there been significant investments into Access for 2010.
Albert D. Kallal
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The support for web apps has been further improved in Access 2013: https://support.office.com/en-us/article/What-s-new-in-Access-2013-0ab58e93-e020-4a9f-af6a-8ddb0c84455f?ui=en-US&rs=en-US&ad=US – Matt Browne Nov 17 '14 at 02:08
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You could have a look at these questions:
MS Access as Enterprise Software?
and
What are the appropriate uses for MS Access?
Here we have a central SQL Server database, with both an MS-Access and a Web client interface. MS-Access is history (we started it 5 years ago) and Web is trendy (less than one year old). I must admit that MS Access is still very very efficient and cheap, once you have resolved some MS access specific problems, to which you might find answers here:
Working with multiple programmers on MS Access
How do you use version control with Access development?
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Philippe Grondier
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So why are you switching the client side to .NET and silverlight in your company? – Deepak Rama Jun 05 '11 at 20:37
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To be trendy! No I am joking. It's mainly a way to anticipate the expected disappearrance of VBA\VB6 developers. Our MSACCESS\SQL Server solution is also quite heavy when deployed in remote places: we still need to deploy a complete solution including SQL Server, integrated security synched with our main domain, and our MS Access client. The main advantage of the web solution is to be available instantly anywhere. But it is clear that some heavy\complex transactions relate dto payroll or budget follow-up might never be switched to web ... – Philippe Grondier Jun 06 '11 at 15:15
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UPDATE: Access 2013 has better support for web apps than previous versions, and the apps use SQL Server or SQL Azure under the hood by default. So be sure to thoroughly evaluate the latest version of Access before concluding that you need something else.
A very good alternative to Access with similar features is Lightswitch. Here's a quote from MSDN:
Visual Studio LightSwitch is a development environment designed to simplify and shorten the development of businesses applications and data services. LightSwitch makes it easy to create data-centric business applications that can consume a variety of data sources and create clients that can run on a variety of devices.
While Access now has a web option as @AlbertDKallal mentioned (and which is still worth considering as one option), creating an HTML 5 app is the whole focus of Lightswitch. (Note: the original version of Lightswitch required Silverlight, but the newer versions create HTML5 apps that don't require any plugins.) The app will also be more extensible, since it's a .NET app, and for things that require custom programming you can program in C# or Visual Basic rather than VBA.
I should mention at this point that I haven't actually tried Lightswitch yet (!) - I'm currently evaluating it and these are the features that look attractive to me compared to Access. If anyone reading this in the future is curious about what my experience with it was like, feel free to write a comment to remind me.
For some introductory info, see these links:
Is Visual Studio LightSwitch the New Access? (Note that this article is about a the original version of LightSwitch, not the latest version.)
And...for a completely different cloud-based option, check out:
Matt Browne
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You can always use VB.NET Express. It's free, and Microsoft's licensing should still allow you to sell apps created with it (they did with Express 2005).
HardCode
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We looked at the Express route but hit problems with writing reports. Our users needed to generate a lot of reports (invoices, receipts, shipping notes etc) so the lack of a reporting feature stopped us and we're still working in Access. – geoff franklin Jun 06 '11 at 07:28
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If you are going to use SQL Server 2005, 2008, or 2008 R2, your reporting issue can be solved with SQL Server Reporting Services. :) – HardCode Aug 08 '11 at 16:37
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I've not looked at a recent version of this so perhaps I need to update myself. Thanks for the reminder. – geoff franklin Aug 09 '11 at 07:51