Access Beta 2007 - your thoughts..

[Paul H]

I have just had a play for half an hour (OK not exactly a beta test!). I
must say I was quite underwhelmed. Yea it looks nice, navigating things was
bit quirky, but it's only a beta right. AFAIK, the ribbon was designed
primarily for Word and Excel users so no breathtaking new Access features,
just a fancy new UI as far as I can see. And still after half an hour I
still can't find the bloody database window!

A few questions/observations:

Does it still use Jet? Are there plans for another engine?

Is DAO still the preferred system for "self contained" Access applications?

Will Access 2007 VBA be very different to previous versions? (will .NET ever
be implemented?)

Why is it that when I read stuff about Office 2007 in magazines, none of
them give more that a few lines to Access in their Office reviews? It seems
that in the media at least, Access is the bastard child of Office that
should be ignored at all costs.

Is there a genuine future for Access and Access developers in your opinion?
Is Microsoft planning other products that will supersede Access?

Should I start learning another RDBMS technology?

Where is the bloody database window?

Paul

[David W. Fenton]

"Paul H" <no****@nospam.comwrote in
news:or********************@eclipse.net.uk:

A few questions/observations:

http://blogs.msdn.com/access/default.aspx

Go back to the beginning of all the posts and read from there up to
the present. That will answer a lot of your questions.

--
David W. Fenton http://www.dfenton.com/
usenet at dfenton dot com http://www.dfenton.com/DFA/

[David W. Fenton]

"Paul H" <no****@nospam.comwrote in
news:or********************@eclipse.net.uk:

Why is it that when I read stuff about Office 2007 in magazines,
none of them give more that a few lines to Access in their Office
reviews? It seems that in the media at least, Access is the
bastard child of Office that should be ignored at all costs.

Access is a product that most people simply cannot comprehend.

Secondly, Access is not pushed as hard by MS as it was in the Office
95/97 time frame. Back then, the product they priced well for OEMs
was Office Pro, which included Access. But starting with Office 2K,
MS seems to have changed its pricing so that Access was not sold as
often.

I'm not so sure this is a bad thing.

--
David W. Fenton http://www.dfenton.com/
usenet at dfenton dot com http://www.dfenton.com/DFA/

[Tim Marshall]

David W. Fenton wrote:

But starting with Office 2K,
MS seems to have changed its pricing so that Access was not sold as
often.

I'm not so sure this is a bad thing.

It would be bad for folks who make part of a living fixing the
monstrosities some office spreadsheet expert who knew a little about
macros used to (and still do) make...
--
Tim http://www.ucs.mun.ca/~tmarshal/
^o<
/#) "Burp-beep, burp-beep, burp-beep?" - Quaker Jake
/^^ "Whatcha doin?" - Ditto "TIM-MAY!!" - Me