Portal, E-Mail Hooks for Access

With the next version of Access, code-named Access 12 and expected in late 2006, Microsoft will continue to move the Office suite’s database product beyond desktop databases, its traditional stronghold, into applications for group collaboration, such as tracking problems during projects. Planned features could make Access a better development platform for collaborative applications that use e-mail and the Web, although Access will have to fight for developer mindshare against a large set of overlapping offerings.

Access initially was a platform for stand-alone desktop databases (e.g., for tracking office equipment) for both professional developers and power users. The Access group believes the product remains relevant even though organizations are relying less on desktop databases and more on centralized databases and portals. In particular, Access still has a unique ability to pull together tabular data from diverse sources, including text files, spreadsheets, and relational databases. Access also has approachable designers for forms and reports, which Microsoft believes it can further simplify to reach more users.