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Microsoft Access (current full name Microsoft Office Access) is a relational database management system from Microsoft, packaged with Microsoft Office Professional which combines the relational Microsoft Jet Database Engine with a graphical user interface. more...
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Microsoft Access can use data stored in Access/Jet, Microsoft SQL Server, Oracle, or any ODBC-compliant data container. Skilled software developers and data architects use it to develop application software. Relatively unskilled programmers and non-programmer "power users" can use it to build simple applications. It supports some object-oriented (OO) techniques but falls short of being a fully OO development tool.
Microsoft Access was also the name of a communications program from Microsoft, meant to compete with ProComm and other programs. This Microsoft Access proved a failure and was dropped. Years later Microsoft reused the name for its database software.
History
Microsoft Access version 1.0 was released in November 1992.
Microsoft specified the minimum operating system for Version 1.1 as Microsoft Windows v3.0 with 4 MB of RAM. 6 MB RAM was recommended along with a minimum of 8 MB of available hard disk space (14 MB hard disk space recommended). The product was shipped on seven 1.44 MB diskettes. The manual shows a 1993 copyright date.
The software worked well with very large records sets but testing showed some circumstances caused data corruption. For example, file sizes over 700 MB were problematic. (Note that most hard disks were smaller than 700 MB at the time this was in wide use). The Getting Started manual warns about a number of circumstances where obsolete device drivers or incorrect configurations can cause data loss.
MS-Access's initial codename was Cirrus. This was developed before Visual Basic and the forms engine was called Ruby. Bill Gates saw the prototypes and decided that the Basic language component should be co-developed as a separate expandable application. This project was called Thunder. The two projects were developed separately as the underlying forms engines were incompatible with each other; however, these were merged together again after VBA.
Uses
Access is used by small businesses, within departments of large corporations, and hobby programmers to create ad hoc customized desktop systems for handling the creation and manipulation of data. Access can also be used as the database for basic web based applications hosted on Microsoft's Internet Information Services and utilizing Microsoft Active Server Pages ASP. More complex web applications may require tools like PHP/MySQL or ASP/Microsoft SQL Server.
Some professional application developers use Access for rapid application development, especially for the creation of prototypes and standalone applications that serve as tools for on-the-road salesmen. Access does not scale well if data access is via a network, so applications that are used by more than a handful of people tend to rely on a Client-Server based solution such as Oracle, DB2, Microsoft SQL Server, Windows SharePoint Services, PostgreSQL, MySQL, Alpha Five, MaxDB, or FileMaker. However, an Access "front end" (the forms, reports, queries and VB code) can be used against a host of database backends, including JET (file-based database engine, used in Access by default), Microsoft SQL Server, Oracle, and any other ODBC-compliant product.
Read more at Wikipedia.org
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