[AccessD] No more Access Web Apps on Office 365

Wed Apr 5 08:59:45 CDT 2017

The world is changing and Microsoft needed to change with it.

Microsoft came up with O365 for three reasons:

1. The world is moving to the web and mobile.

2. The old model of selling new versions with new features as enticements to
upgrade is dead.   Everyone is moving to continual in-stream updates that
are subscription based, allowing for not having the need to come up with
major improvements every development cycle, and getting a steady revenue
stream rather than the feast or famine associated with the old product
development cycle. 

3. The world is also moving to SaaS (Software as a Service).  Gets them
additional revenue not tied to software development.

  The reason for all this is that Microsoft, like many other companies were
finding it very hard to continually improve a product to the point where
people would want to upgrade to a new version.

  An example of this is Team Viewer, which I use for remote support.    It
is fundamentally un-changed since version 7 and they are now on version 12.
They've added bells and whistles to be sure, but not enough for people like
me to upgrade and many are not.   Not too long ago, I got a survey from them
and it was obvious they were trying to find out why, and if a subscription
model would be something I would be interested in.  I also spoke with them
on the phone, and what I offered was "There's nothing new that I need".   So
subscriptions are a nice way of getting money out of people where you would
not have before.

  Microsoft had the same deal with Office and Windows.  Look how many
versions were panned by the market as not really offering anything new. So
they moved to a subscription model and are making it very difficult for
users not to be setup that way.  Try a MSI install of Office 2016<g>.   You
can't even activate it without setting up a on-line Microsoft account unless
you use volume keys (and for the SMB market, which doesn't use volume keys
and doesn't want O365, this is a killer).

JimD.

-----Original Message-----
From: AccessD [mailto:accessd-bounces at databaseadvisors.com] On Behalf Of Jim
Lawrence
Sent: Wednesday, April 05, 2017 12:58 AM
To: Access Developers discussion and problem solving
Subject: Re: [AccessD] No more Access Web Apps on Office 365

All of these observations that Microsoft could have created such a
technology like egldata or created a real web based product did seems odd to
me. 

Did MS create a web presence, 365, because it wanted to expand its access to
new users or did it create 365 because other companies were creating a
usable set of competing web products? Would Microsoft, have stayed the same,
changed nothing and advanced nowhere unless they were being forced to do so?

Why would Microsoft abandon a very successful product for something, that I
describe as a ridiculous mashup app?

More questions and answers.

Jim 

----- Original Message -----
From: "Jim Dettman" <jimdettman at verizon.net>
To: "Access Developers discussion and problem solving"
<accessd at databaseadvisors.com>
Sent: Tuesday, April 4, 2017 3:57:06 AM
Subject: Re: [AccessD] No more Access Web Apps on Office 365

I myself have not, but we've had several on EE that have tried them and have
always reported good results.  One has deep knowledge of Access and I trust
his opinion completely.

Some apps required minor modifications, but they were along the lines of
what you'd do for running under terminal services (ie. everyone being on the
C drive, so writing a temp file to C:\temp for every user might cause
conflicts).  

I've also seen some details of the back story and the technology used is
sound.  That's why my comment "Why can't Microsoft do this?".   From a
profit standpoint, they could have done something like this as part of
Office 365 and made a killing on it.   BIG opportunity missed I think.

Eqldata has been have been in business for quite a few years now and it
looks like they are here to stay.  

The only real negative comment has been that it can get pricey for a large
number of remote users.

JimD.

-----Original Message-----
From: AccessD [mailto:accessd-bounces at databaseadvisors.com] On Behalf Of Jim
Lawrence
Sent: Monday, April 03, 2017 02:35 PM
To: Access Developers discussion and problem solving
Subject: Re: [AccessD] No more Access Web Apps on Office 365

Have you tried using eqldata yet? Their pricing model seems interesting:

"Pay only for what you use. OnWeb's concurrent user pricing means you only
pay for the time users actively run your web databases - we don't charge for
inactive users."

Jim

----- Original Message -----
From: "Jim Dettman" <jimdettman at verizon.net>
To: "Access Developers discussion and problem solving"
<accessd at databaseadvisors.com>
Sent: Monday, April 3, 2017 7:57:34 AM
Subject: Re: [AccessD] No more Access Web Apps on Office 365

<>

 Not as much as one would think:

www.eqldata.com

 Two guys figured out how to do that; you think Microsoft could.

 Not that is overly simplistic and doesn't truly bring you into the
web/mobile world, but letting existing apps run in a web browser would have
breathed life into Access for quite some time.

 And this is the part that Microsoft doesn't get and never does; people run
their businesses with Access, have ten's or even hundred's of thousands of
dollars into them and years in development efforts, which they don't want to
simply toss away.

 But they always treat it as if it was just installing another version of
Office.

Jim.

-----Original Message-----
From: AccessD [mailto:accessd-bounces at databaseadvisors.com] On Behalf Of
Ryan W
Sent: Monday, April 03, 2017 10:17 AM
To: Access Developers discussion and problem solving
Subject: Re: [AccessD] No more Access Web Apps on Office 365

It would be really nice if they had a way to import a Access FE in and
somehow convert it all to web.  I've been wanting a way to ditch Access
without completely redeveloping my App in something cross platform (Web
would be ideal)... but that's just a silly pipe dream.

On Mon, Apr 3, 2017 at 9:11 AM, Jim Dettman <jimdettman at verizon.net> wrote:

>
>  Unfortunately Microsoft's approach to "end user" web development wasn't
> very cohesive.
>
>  They tried to bring Light switch in as a replacement for desktop Access
> and
> were pushing AWA for the web/mobile world.  They have been fooling around
> with that since 2006 and were already late to the party then. The real
> issue
> with AWA is that rather than thinking out of the box, they tried to
> leverage
> SharePoint once again.
>
>  Not sure who's responsible for that, but someone at Microsoft thought
> SharePoint was the center of the universe and should be used for
> *everything*.  Fantastic workflow collaboration tool, but relational DB or
> web host it is not.
>
>  I do however still believe they have a shot at it.  If they can develop
> something for the Web/Mobile world with the tenets of Access (ease of use
> through wizards, etc) and make it easy for the common Joe/Josephine to get
> started, then they can still grab a seat at the table.  They'll have to do
> it very fast though, and it does seem like they realize that as they seem
> to
> be all in in regards to Power Apps.
>
> Jim.
>
> -----Original Message-----
> From: AccessD [mailto:accessd-bounces at databaseadvisors.com] On Behalf Of
> Ryan W
> Sent: Monday, April 03, 2017 09:52 AM
> To: Access Developers discussion and problem solving
> Subject: Re: [AccessD] No more Access Web Apps on Office 365
>
> Ugh.  That's pretty sad.
>
>
> On Mon, Apr 3, 2017 at 8:49 AM, Jim Dettman <jimdettman at verizon.net>
> wrote:
>
> >
> >  Yes.
> >
> > Jim.
> >
> > -----Original Message-----
> > From: AccessD [mailto:accessd-bounces at databaseadvisors.com] On Behalf Of
> > Ryan W
> > Sent: Tuesday, March 28, 2017 03:16 PM
> > To: Access Developers discussion and problem solving
> > Subject: Re: [AccessD] No more Access Web Apps on Office 365
> >
> > Is this their very late response to Oracle APEX?
> >
> >
> > On Tue, Mar 28, 2017 at 1:47 PM, Jim Lawrence <accessd at shaw.ca> wrote:
> >
> > > What is "Power Apps"?
> > >
> > > Please explain more...I am very interested in hear about the Access
> > > replacement.
> > >
> > > Jim
> > >
> > > ----- Original Message -----
> > > From: "Gustav Brock" <gustav at cactus.dk>
> > > To: "Access Developers discussion and problem solving" <
> > > accessd at databaseadvisors.com>
> > > Sent: Monday, March 27, 2017 11:16:48 PM
> > > Subject: [AccessD] No more Access Web Apps on Office 365
> > >
> > > Hi all
> > >
> > > Not that I have used these - as little as the former attempts to bring
> > > Access to the web - but they will be phased out soon:
> > >
> > > https://techcommunity.microsoft.com/t5/Office-
> > > Retirement-Blog/Updating-the-Access-Services-in-SharePoint-
> > > Roadmap/ba-p/57148
> > >
> > > The suggested "replacement", not related to Access at all, is Power
> Apps.
> > >
> > > /gustav
> > > --
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