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From...
Microsoft Access here to stay
Rumors of the database manager's death are greatly exaggerated, company says.
November 12, 1998
Web posted at: 12:40 PM EDT
by Clare Haney
(IDG) -- Despite recent industry speculation, Microsoft remains committed to its Access database, a key part of the Office suite, a company executive said on Tuesday.
"Access will not go away," said Doug Leland, group product marketing manager for SQL Server at Microsoft. "We will be adding in new functionality that allows it to scale," he said. Leland was referring to the forthcoming new version of the desktop database due to appear in the company's Office 2000 desktop applications suite in the second quarter of 1999.
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Leland's comments contrast with recent press and analyst speculation that Microsoft is planning to dump Access and replace it with a pared-down embedded version of the company's high-end relational database SQL Server 7.0. SQL Server 7.0 will be officially released at the Comdex/Fall show in Las Vegas on Monday.
Leland explained that when the new version of Access ships in Office 2000, there will be two alternatives for the Access data engine. One will be Jet, the existing native storage environment for Access, while the other option will be a new offering, the Microsoft Data Engine.
Leland denied that MSDE is an embedded version of SQL Server, describing it instead as "data storage technology compatible with SQL Server that shares a similar component architecture" with the relational database.
He said that developers using Access as a front-end to SQL Server will be able to use the MSDE option to develop applications that can, if needed, transparently scale up from the desktop database to its relational big brother SQL Server. "You can build or model applications that can be departmental or potentially enterprise-level in nature," Leland added.
"It's best to think of Access as two parts," Leland said. One part is the end-user tool used for reporting or building applications, while the other is the data storage environment of Jet or MSDE, he said.