Here’s a question I put to you, How is Access fairing today in your humble opinion?
Is Access:
- Thriving as it should, growing in the world
- Alive, but not progressing
- On a downward spiral towards its demise
- Dead, already in its cemetery plot
I’m very curious what different people’s perspective is on this question based on their personal experiences.
Over the years, we’ve all see various posts announcing Access’ imminent death. Yet, time after time, these announcements have proven themselves to be pure fiction and fear mongering by certain people.
That said, in the past few years, I have seen a noticeable decline in online forum questions relating to Access. Now is that indicative of a decline in the usage of the application itself, or is it showing that online resources have improved over the years and are providing the necessary solutions so people need not ask as many questions?
We have seen some new development from Microsoft and their Access Roadmap is offering us a ray of hope for the future. Would they be investing in the product if they thought it was on its way out? After years of standing still, are these new potential updates all a little too late?
At the same time, we are seeing Microsoft majorly push towards the cloud with things like Azure SQL, PowerApps, Power Automate (Flows). Yet, even with the push, there has been no web version of Access. Even the latest announcement relating to Access was the Dataverse Connector which in fact migrates the back-end data away from Access completely. Is this the moment to be reading between the lines, or is it truly just Access evolving?
Are things unchanged where Access is concerned? Does it still hold the same importance it always did?
Has the lack of forward movement of the product in recent years combined with the vast array of competitive applications now available on the market marked Access for death?
If you believe that Access is Dying or Dead, What would you qualify as the main cause?
Have the updates in the past 4-5+ years helped in any way blow new life into Access?
What are your thoughts on the matter?
What are you seeing where you live and work?
Have your say, drop me a comment below.
Going with “Alive, but not progressing”
Databases have ALWAYS been the red-headed step child of the PC/Desktop world so, IMHO, I have seen no real change as far as popularity goes. And from where I sit, Access gets NO love from MS unless it is to further one of their Power Ranger products. It’s a sad state of affairs…
Daniel, I am on the same page here, although I tend to be more optimistic.
For a long time now, many serious Access developers have been working with Access interfaces to various backend data storage options, including SQL Server, SQL Azure, MySQL, and so on. Dataverse may or may not take its place alongside those options; I’m not sure we can see it as anything other than that.
That said, I’ve invited Michael Aldridge, Principal PM for Access, to present a session in our virtual Access User Group on Thursday of this week. It’s a chance for people to interact live and ask questions about the future of Access.
https://accessusergroups.org/pacific/event/access-pacific-2021-12-02/
Great question, Daniel!
I think Access is “Alive, but not progressing.”
There are far too many critical business applications written in Access for it to just “go away” any time soon. Unfortunately, Microsoft has neglected Access in pursuit of shinier objects for many years now.
Microsoft could breathe new life into Access by:
• Making Access more version-control friendly
• Not selling Access short by referring to it as a no-code/low-code development platform
• Do something about the 90’s era IDE
• Clarify Access’s dual purpose as both a front-end and back-end
As my full explanation grew into the hundreds of words, I realized it was more of a story than a comment. You can read my full thoughts over at my blog: https://nolongerset.com/state-of-access-2021/
You have no argument from me Mike.
I still can’t understand how a database application hasn’t seen any improvement to the SQL editor in 30 years, and that’s just the tip of the iceberg. Yet, Microsoft found time and resources for so many truly useless features over the years. Oh, how I hope the changing of the guard (new Program Manager), yet again, brings some proper reflection on what the true priorities should be!
I also fully agree that Access isn’t going away any time soon.
With more and more applications and solutions moving to the cloud (which is not always the best thing), I do suspect that Access is technically on the decline in terms of usage (for the moment). However, it appears to be on an extremely slow decline. For now, (as far as I am aware) MS Access remains the only major player within it’s very specific domain (I’ll keep it short by not going into those details). At the moment, I have no intention of moving away from MS Access because it is doing the job it is intended for. I suspect that even Microsoft may still be attempting to figure out the future of MS Access and I believe that it will depend largely upon future demand.
“Now is that indicative of a decline in the usage of the application itself, or is it showing that online resources have improved over the years and are providing the necessary solutions so people need not ask as many questions?”.
It’s on a downward spiral towards its demise because very very few developers who do not know Access want to learn it. If anything, they would just like to know how to export the data out of Access so they can migrate Access apps to other solutions. So Access developers will gradually disappear via attrition.
I tend to agree. I think Access is dying and a big part of that has been neglect from Microsoft for a good 10 years. They are now, trying to breath new life into the product with some big promises on their roadmap. Then again then roadmap just keeps getting blown away as ETAs seem to be fictitious at best! It will be interesting to see what happens in the coming year or 2 and if if renews interest in the product or not.
It still remains the most popular database in the world though. People don’t realize just how much it is used. So it will never just disappear.
I think Access is “Alive, but not progressing.”
I am not a professional programmer. As a retired engineer, I self-learned Access in order to support two non-profit charities, both of which have only volunteers and are thus “technically challenged.” I have used Access for about 20 years for these charities and it continues to provide the needed solutions.
I definitely feel that Microsoft has taken the “if it isn’t broke, then don’t fix it” approach.
By the way, Daniel, I have gotten significant help from your website over the years. The last time was yesterday. Thanks for your expertise.