Access Professional 365 and Access Desktop Two new versions
Draw a line under the product. Create 2 products:
Express/User version which ONLY has macros. (no VB projects)
The express version can be further tweaked to prevent creation of multi user projects
Professional/Enterprise Developer version for Developers
with the some stripped out features put back
The Pro version features:
1.The this version should also allow simple targeting of Mobile devices.
2.Source control
3.AZURE SQL and SQL Server projects
This will Sell MORE cloud services
4.Improve the crappy forms projects so they are as good as VS.NET (Express....)
5.Improve reports and integrate with SQL Server reporting.
Create PDF reporting
6.Scrap the new macro editor it is really annoying.
7.Present a consistant data model. Lets face it : random use of DAO, RDO, and ADO is poor practice
Follow my idea above and give us the .net data model. SCRAP DAO Support
8.Add proper stored procedures both locally and in SQLServer/Azure projects.
9.Provide an in BUILT way for backing up each section of the Accdb to source control if you persist with the single file model
10.Provide a simple way of exporting the schema as DDL
11.Provide a Cloud solution in office 365 for DEVELOPERS.
12.Remove VBA and add VB.net or C# for developers. With a developer framework library
13.DROP the single file model
14. Provide a managed back end for workgroup development in the peer currently
occupied by sqlserver express.
14.Hire me as your product manager currently this product is losing your most important customers FAST.
Well looking at that list makes me think: Visual studio: New project Type ....
Equdos is a microsoft partner.
Equdos ART Team specializes in migrating VBA projects to the cloud
and mobile devices (thanks for the work)
We have developed in EVERY version of this product.

1 comment
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Steve Kaltenhauser commented
Fully agree with everything here Mark.
MS Access seems to be losing Microsoft's interest. The product is not understood by laypeople and frowned upon by many developers as some sort of toy.
It's a fairly big jump to .net development, especially for one person consultants.
MS Access could be a very compelling bridge for a lot of "departmental" and "one person" developers out there.
Microsoft could also do a better job of marketing MS Access. Any time I go to an Office365 site, MS Access is not even visible unless you start clicking through several pages to finally find it. (Is this a hint from Microsoft)?
I realize MS Access has always been the bastard child of Office, but please give it a bit more love and attention. I have developed so many MS Access applications that utilize Outlook, Word, and Excel that it's clear to me that, without MS Access, these other office products would be diminished.
And again, everything that Mark said.