Access has always been an “oddity” within the Office suite and even within Microsoft’s entire product lineup. Who are its loyal users? “Technical staff” who are not professional programmers.
In the enterprise information technology market, they have always been overlooked. No other database product is as simple, direct, and even foolproof as Access, which can quickly establish content management capabilities based on data.
Although these users may not understand true programming, they may be more proficient than us at using Office macros, are highly skilled in the entire Office system and its functions, and are better at making use of these features to support business processes, especially with Access and Excel.
As they are often among the earliest internet adopters in traditional enterprises, many of them are now in middle or senior management positions. Access gave them enough confidence and returns; at the time, they could use Access to develop small projects, manage their own data silos, and maintain the organization and effectiveness of their local environments. Today, they can still rely on Access to maintain very stable data content.
For Microsoft, Access has an irreplaceable survival advantage. Compared to modern databases, it still has strong competitiveness. However, its ranking is very stable, often neither rising nor falling. This is due to the deep-rooted reasons that make it difficult for traditional enterprises to undergo transformation. Not to mention China, even in a computing powerhouse like the United States, there are more than 85,000 business users using Access, and this number may be even higher in China.
Software engineers with a computer science background, whether new to the field or with over ten years of experience, are almost never passively or actively familiar with Access technology. In their eyes, it is merely a low-level, outdated data development technology. But in the eyes of technical personnel in traditional enterprises, especially those in the 35-55 age range, Access is seen as the most “down-to-earth” technology that has helped enterprises achieve stable data management capabilities up to the present day.
Even to this day, although the software market is increasingly rich with no-code, low-code, and business development tools or platforms that liberate development productivity, most innovations occur in high-barrier technical fields. From virtualization to cloud computing, from cloud computing to containerization, and now to the discussed Serverless (function computing) architecture, these are almost all aimed at professional developers, not those non-programming office-based technical staff. Few development tools can be as user-friendly as Access, allowing them to quickly get started and customize their business choices, creating exciting and lasting business value.
These motivated individuals with decision-making power in their departments do not want to rely on professional programmers in the workplace. They prefer to solve problems quickly on their own, and at least Access provides them with the capability to do so.
From the Access project scenarios I have learned about, there is often no situation where multiple people are editing data online at the same time, nor is there a lot of data sharing with external platforms. More importantly, users only need to fill out forms and reports, complete field and constraint settings, and this can meet internal business development needs. For small and medium-sized enterprises struggling for survival, and even for conservative departments in large traditional companies, this is simply “good enough.”
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