I thought I’d simply mention that Colin Riddington recently hosted and now has released a worthwhile YouTube video with multiple contributors regarding the future of Microsoft Access. I was particularly happy and interested in the segments from Microsoft personnel (so around the 30:34 mark in the video).
So, if you want a little idea of what might be finally coming our way, I’d urge you to look at the following video.
The video starts off with Juan going on about Access’ uniqueness of the IT environment and why he believes it isn’t going to be deprecated overnight by Microsoft.
Not that I necessarily disagree with some of what he says, but at the same time I always think of
Microsoft Graveyard – Killed by Microsoft
and how fast the rug can be pulled from under your feet with, or without warning.
I have, an application (created in PHP) I created that generates new and also that modifies existing Excel and/or Word files.
I also created a routine in that same application that generates e-mails in Outlook (desktop), produces and attaches attachments to those same e-mails.
So, it can most certainly be done!!! It is most certainly possible to integrate Office interaction/automation via other programming languages!
For the App I am referring to in the instances above, my client used to be happily using a mission critical Access database for 8-10 years until they got hit, in a period of a few months, with multiple Office/MS365 bugs that caused so much downtime that he made the decision to migrate to a Web Application instead. They have been running it for 4+ years and have never once mentioned any issues with limitation working with Office in any shape or form since the switch. It has expanded considerably over the past several years and now even has a mobile app that integrates into the system.
Heck, I generate custom monthly reports as Excel files with charts and all, can create PDFs, CSVs, … at the click of a button…
A Good developer can solve business problems and find solutions to even inter-op with Office via PHP (for instance).
Like everything, there are both PROs and CONs to each (Access vs Web Apps). No one is better than the other. Such statements are simply false and/or trying to push prospect clients towards perdetermined sales solutions! You have to weigh each against your needs/specifications and choose the one that fulfills them the best.
Then, midway through the video, a few Microsoft developers take over to give us a little insight as to what is currently in the queue at their end.
Dale Rector starts off stating, at around the 32:00 mark, that MS will be improving:
- Modern Charting
- SQL Editor
- DataVerse (this is their new focus and has been for the past several years now)
- Rendering on large monitors
Courtney Owens, at around the 35:30 mark, stated things like:
- Gaining the ability to open queries directly in SQL view
- Continuing to address bugs
So between the above video and the video presented in my previous post:
it gives us a bit of a better idea of at least the general direction currently being taken by the Microsoft Access Dev Team. More information than we’ve been provided in a LONG time!
Hey Daniel: I also sat through that somewhat ponderous presentation as well with Juan Soto. My impression was that most of the presentation was Juan pushing his own business with Access, I mean he said he’s hiring, which is great if you’re looking for such a job I guess. There was another MVP lady (her name escapes me at the moment) who gave a presentation which I thought was interesting (forgot the exact topic, too!). But in terms of the point of the video, i.e. does Access still have a future, I was not convinced by Juan that it does. Recall the Microsoft Graveyard with so much stuff. Remember VB6, VB.Net? Right now it’s C# that’s the popular language at MS. But look at MS Office for example. It’s now on a subscription basis as Office 365. Or if you want to, you can spend as little as $35 at 3rd party sellers for an install key, or upwards of $400+, to get the “old” retail version (Word, Excel, Powerpoint, Access, Publisher, etc) for the desktop directly from Microsoft, either way, as a perpetual license. Now I have to ask (myself) what force on earth has prevented MS from totally killing MS Office that gets installed on your PC or Mac or Linux with a perpetual license so that they force you into a subscription? And even if you get the 2021 Office Professional as a perpetual license which includes the desktop version of Access, feature updates to Office 2021, or Access’s feature set in particular, will not be included – only Office 365 gets that privilege. At least that’s the way I understand it. An example is the new browser control that renders web pages correctly will NOT be available for upgrade in the Office 2021 (or earlier) versions of Access. It’s an issue that needs to be driven home to whom ever makes these rug-pulling decisions. Obviously, the developer community doesn’t seem to have to political clout or have the attention of those that willy nilly say “Oh! Let’s kill VBA or let’s kill this, or that” without realizing the collateral damage these seemingly whimsical decisions make. OK, I’ve said enough! Thanks for the opportunity to comment. I always look forward to your content.
Juan is a shameless self-promoter, but that is how you succeed in business! If you don’t promote yourself, no one else will.
Oh, there’s no doubt that Microsoft’s priority for the past, 10 or so years, has been to push by any means users to MS365 subscriptions! They don’t want you holding on to older versions, they don’t want people running perpetual versions!!! In an ideal world, they want everyone on MS365. This has been very clear for quite some time now.
Well, I will never go for an Office 365 subscription as long as I can use Office 2021, and as a result I will be forever condemned to the “No New Web Browser Control For You” Jail House. I used to like Microsoft for promoting the developer with fun tools that were available for everybody. Not anymore. I’m beginning to view them as evil. Thanks for your reply Daniel.
They have a monopoly and they know it! They are a business whose only goal in life is dividends ($$$), everything else is secondary. They are no different than any other business. I am quite like you. I still use 2013, because it is stable. I don’t like some of the esthetic changes made in MS365 and I don’t like subscription model software. I’d love to get update for older versions, things like the Modern Web Browser, the upcoming new SQL Editor, LAA, … but will do without. At the same time that I say that, I primarily do PHP development nowadays.
I do have a VM with MS365, but don’t use it for development, I created it simply to test the new Modern Web Browser (curious me) when it first came out and to create my YouTubbe videos on the subject.
Although the Modern Web Browser did solve issues and it showed improvements, it also introduced new complexities that boggle the mind (Trusted Domains, can’t switch between local and web content, some JS does not work, …) and so I found it to be a major disappointment. They were so close to offering a truly remarkable leap forward and decided to cripple it instead!