No more Access databases

[Michael Abrams]

I have no idea what is out there in the world of tech, but I would like to hear from anyone who
has an idea:

My company is 'getting rid of' MS Access effective 1/1/2018. They do not want to support it and do not want to pay for
licenses.

We use Access mainly for data storage, data reporting (queries) and historical research. We receive text files in different formats and import them into Access to make them readable, filterable (if that's a word) and reportable. We use them to reconcile with our main system.

What do you think could replace Access that can do what we need? I think the suits have no idea what access does, and
therefore have no clue what to substitute it with !

Thanks for any input.

Michael

[HansV]

That depends on your needs.

1) Access Runtime is a freely downloadable version of Access that you can use to work with existing Access databases even of you don't have the full version installed. You cannot use it to develop databases though - that must be done in Access itself.

2) LibreOffice and Apache OpenOffice are free alternative Office suites.

You can create queries etc. in Base, but it doesn't support VBA - that could be a showstopper or not depending on how you use Access.

3) It's possible to create stand-alone applications in VB6 or one of the Visual Studio languages that use an Access database to store data. This requires an experienced programmer, though.
Both contain a database program named Base that can open Access databases.

[Michael Abrams]

VBA is required due to user interfaces on forms.

This is going to be very interesting.

[HansV]

Can't you convince the powers-that-be to keep at least two licenses for Access?

At the place where I work, we don't use Access as our main database program, but we find it indispensable for exchanging data between server databases and other applications, for data cleaning, and for querying...

[Mark L]

I'm not sure who these guys are that are making this decision, but I question their business sense. Do they think software and support are free? Not that Access is the only solution available, but they've already invested in it and now they want to get rid of it and start all over again with something else? And if I'm understanding what you are saying, they aren't complaining about the results, only the cost. I guess they never heard of a Cost-BENEFIT analysis!

They should also Microsoft is now including Access in many Office pricing packages, so if they went that route they would be paying for it whether or not they used it. Plus as Hans pointed out, the runtime is a free download.

[grovelli]

I was wearing a suit before starting to use Access and I can tell you the suit fits so much more snugly with Access if you couple it with Excel and, nowadays, with Power BI as well. Try to replace it and the suit rapidly wears off

[Michael Abrams]

Thank you guys ! I will keep you all updated as soon as they make their next move.

What's that expression - penny wise - dollar foolish?

Stay tuned....

Michael

[Wendell]

Let me add a bit to the conversation: I've heard of one organization who wants to go away from Access because support for Access 2007 is ending in 2020. Of course it will continue to work beyond that, and they have the choice of upgrading to a more recent version - 2010/2013/2016. My view is that Access will continue to be supported for the forseeable future. You might check and see if that logic factors into management's thinking.