[AccessD] Access Development Future

[David Emerson]

Hi Rocky,

I am definitely in the "years" category rather than "decades".

I figure that it is the huge installed base that are the ones that are more likely to be needing support than new applications from scratch. The trick is letting them know we are still around.

David

-----Original Message-----
From: AccessD <accessd-bounces+newsgrps=dalyn.co.nz at databaseadvisors.com> On Behalf Of Rocky Smolin
Sent: Monday, 26 October 2026 11:02 am
To: Access Developers discussion and problem solving <accessd at databaseadvisors.com>
Subject: Re: [AccessD] Access Development Future

David: Nice to hear from you.

I'm still doing sporadic work for a few legacy customers. It's fun. But it's not a living. Well, that's because I started to wind my business down many years ago. Simply did not P.R. or advertising. And the clients mostly went away. And I'm retired and those few extra bucks are not going to change our lifestyle.

I have heard (and I believe) that there is a huge installed base of Access apps, and they'll all need support from time to time. You don't need 99% of that market - just enough to keep you and the bank happy.

Access and VBA is an obsolete technology. But so is COBOL and during the Y2K "crisis" they were bringing retired COBOL programmers in to update the apps.

But a new business of any size is probably not going to have an app written from scratch like I used to do - they're going to want it in something that can port to the web easily (or start there).

I don't know who old you are or how close to retirement you are or how close to being ready for that. But if you've got a time horizon in decades instead of years, you might want to think about taking your database and UI designing skills to a more moderne platform.

Let's see what others on AccessD think (if there are others :--) )

 Best,

r



On Sun, Oct 25, 2026 at 2:26 PM David Emerson <newsgrps at dalyn.co.nz> wrote:

> Greetings Listers,
>
> All has been quiet on the Access front.
>
> I am interested on how many of us are still supporting Access applications?
> Has AI made a major difference to existing client databases or is 
> there still a niche for our work in smaller businesses that don't have 
> the funds to take advantage of the latest technologies?
>
> Regards
>
> David Emerson
> Dalyn Software Ltd
> Adelaide, Australia