The Downfall of Microsoft Access and its Versions

It has been almost more than three decades, since the usage of Microsoft Access applications by different clients and in-house projects. Various companies are still using many of the versions of Microsoft Access. Many companies’ databases are built on Microsoft Access applications. Since the news is out that Microsoft is soon ending its support for many of the versions of Microsoft Access, it has put many businesses in a great dilemma.

What to do?

If your Microsoft Access is about to end support, then you might have two options. Immediately switch to some other platform that fully supports your business functions. You can get help from developers who implemented Access in your network. Or wait till the support ends and then switch. In any case, switching is the only option.

By choosing the second option means if you switch after the support ends, you will face terrible results.

If you do not switch using multiple versions of Microsoft Access sooner, you will get difficulty in finding an expert who can update and maintain.

Microsoft Access switched from multi-user to single user in 2009. So the companies back then who didn’t change the platform beforehand faced many issues, like the administration team, could only access the database from a single login at a time, which caused a massive loss in the form of productivity and efficiency.

Problems users might face:

There are various issues which the users of multiple versions of Microsoft Access can face:

Lack of Microsoft experts:

The lack of support is because of the lack of experts and developers. As the progress of the development department is increasing many programmers are switching to different companies and different platforms from Microsoft, which causes the shortage of experts who will provide support.

Limited OS

The Access of Microsoft is limited to a few Operating Systems only. It does not support Mac. If you are an Apple user, you can only see the data but unable to access it. This is one of the major fails because companies who give choices to their employees for choosing the Operating system. Or companies who let their employees work on their computer system.

Cloud disconnection

The remote access to the data is difficult while using Microsoft Access. If your employee is updating your files and you are not present at your office, that file is locked in your employee’s hard drive. Unless you are using Office 365, you cannot access it.

Inefficient Accessibility

Microsoft Access is best for small business but not be much useful for giant ventures as it only supports single user access. So, for companies that need multiple access simultaneously, this platform is not beneficial.

Switch from Microsoft Access:

Microsoft is failing to provide support to different versions of Microsoft Access. Many businesses are switching to other platforms. Many other platforms give users easy personalization to their database while improving productivity and efficiency with appropriate integration, remote accessibility, and improved security.

Users who switched the platform shared their experience by praising the new platform. Many online institutions that provided cultural and language instructions and have hundreds of virtual students used Microsoft Access for data management of students and members. But they faced crashes when multiple tasks were tried on it. Data management was becoming a headache. Before the complete data damage, the institute switched to another platform to save the data and for better task management. Using the other platform, multitasking became quite easy and efficient. The support of Microsoft is minimizing day by day.

Pros of Microsoft Access:

With a few flaws, there are also many pros of implementing Microsoft Access. Some of the advantages are:

Longevity

Although Microsoft is not providing the best of this platform for a decade, still, it is one of the most used relational databases for the longest time.

Portability

The portability doesn’t mean it supports different operating systems, but it means that it can be easily copied or moved. The interface is much more like an excel file, which makes it quite more comfortable to use for the users. Replicating a location or copying the file is quite easy for the users.

Why people use Access:

The reason why Access is used so widely is that it fulfills the business needs for many small scale businesses. No other option can be better than Microsoft if you own small business. But things start getting worse if the company is large.

Access comes with a GUI kit that enables users to build databases that are according to the business needs of small businesses. Different series of projects can be built on Acces that are essential for business development.

These were some of the pros and cons of Microsoft Access. We also discuss why Microsoft Access is going through a downfall. We hope that this article will be beneficial for you while choosing the appropriate platform for your business according to the size of your business.