[AccessD] Tony's comments

James Button jamesbutton at blueyonder.co.uk
Thu Feb 21 09:55:58 CST 2013


In that case, perhaps they should provide Access in the Home version rather 
than requiring those who want it to buy the 'Pro' or higher versions of 
MSOffice.

Re
"Microsoft has continually taken what developers stretched Access to do, 
looked at that, and then simplified those tasks for the end user"

Er - and removed some of the bits that developers found helpful!

I suspect that they are unhappy at the success of the ipad, iphone and 
similar devices, and have adopted a marketing management driven policy off 
chasing the competition rather than their earlier policies in the days when 
they seemed destind to rule the IT world, when they were leading the push 
for first consideration in IT market.

As I once told the MD of Apricot as a simple dos.bat script (calling 
supercalc with a worksheet file with the same 8 byte name as the bat file, 
locked-up the systems at a demo:-

If half of the marketing budget had been spent on getting the software 
right, he wouldn't have needed to spend the other half of the marketing 
budget.
Note that system was about the size of a keyboard, had voice command, 
inbuilt flat screen, speaker, hard drive in the 1" thick bit that folded 
over the keyboard.

And that was while the IBM XT was being sold with a 20MB drive. and the 
partable competition was a compaq 'luggable'

If you know nothing about that system - well that would probably be because 
the 'manufacturers' effort went into marketing, when getting the software 
right would have seen it as a preferred executive desktop system in many 
organisations.


JimB

----- Original Message ----- 
From: "Jim Dettman" <jimdettman at verizon.net>
To: "'Access Developers discussion and problem solving'" 
<accessd at databaseadvisors.com>
Sent: Thursday, February 21, 2013 3:31 PM
Subject: Re: [AccessD] Tony's comments


>
> Some, but the majority do not.
>
> But it doesn't change the fact that Access has always been part of Office
> and never marketed as a developer tool by Microsoft.
>
> It's never been listed by them as being part of any development technology
> and it's never been referred to as a developer tool.
>
> Their focus has always been taking a complex task and making it easier for
> the end user.  MVF's, attachment data type, PDF snap-in, etc are examples 
> of
> those.  For the most part, they've never really focused on what developers
> needed.  If they had, we would not still be living with reference issues,
> would have more 3rd party controls available to us, more control of the
> screen and application object, a better installer, improvements in the JET
> engine, etc.
>
> Microsoft has continually taken what developers stretched Access to do,
> looked at that, and then simplified those tasks for the end user.  And now
> more then ever, anything that can't be simplified is being stripped out
> (Replication, ADP's, and Workgroup Security).
>
> Since A2007, it has been more about the end user then ever before because
> now, things like VS, SQL Server, and Light Switch can occupy a space that
> Access once had a lock on.
>
> Jim.
>
> -----Original Message-----
> From: accessd-bounces at databaseadvisors.com
> [mailto:accessd-bounces at databaseadvisors.com] On Behalf Of John W Colby
> Sent: Thursday, February 21, 2013 08:51 AM
> To: Access Developers discussion and problem solving
> Subject: Re: [AccessD] Tony's comments
>
> LOL, and yet... what power user understands normalization?  VBA?  Object
> models?  ADO vs DAO? etc ad
> nasium.
>
> John W. Colby?
>
> Reality is what refuses to go away
> when you do not believe in it
>
> On 2/21/2013 7:42 AM, Jim Dettman wrote:
>>    You need to be fair here; Microsoft has never said Access is a
> developers
>> tool nor marketed it as such.
>>
>> Jim.
>>
>> -----Original Message-----
>> From: accessd-bounces at databaseadvisors.com
>> [mailto:accessd-bounces at databaseadvisors.com] On Behalf Of David McAfee
>> Sent: Wednesday, February 20, 2013 06:26 PM
>> To: Access Developers discussion and problem solving
>> Subject: Re: [AccessD] Tony's comments
>>
>> But Access was too good of a tool. MS has been wanting to kill it for
> years.
> <<snip>>
>
> -- 
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> AccessD at databaseadvisors.com
> http://databaseadvisors.com/mailman/listinfo/accessd
> Website: http://www.databaseadvisors.com 



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