Re: Ms Access 2003

Hi, Mell.

The bigger companies, I would think they
would not want to just use Access with native jet unless BE on SQL, etc?

One would think so, but that's generally not the case. The bigger companies
have IT departments that build the in-house software applications, but their
schedules are so backlogged that many departments will use their own non-IT
employees to build a database application or use their department budget to
hire a contractor to build the application. Sometimes these applications
use the company's "official" database engine for the back end, but more
often than not, it's Jet. And it's not a split database, either.

Everyone in the department is using the application, then other departments
discover its usefulness, and they start sharing it, too, since the Access
file is in a shared directory on the network. The application becomes
mission-critical, it crashes, gets corrupted, and IT is called in. IT
starts screaming bloody murder, because they were never consulted about
building the mission-critical application, so it wasn't built with any
standard practices of software development in mind. IT has to drop
everything to fix the mission-critical application, which usually means
redesigning and building it from scratch -- in IT's software development
environment of choice, which is rarely Access because they don't have any
competent Access developers. The end result is that Access gets blamed for
being inadequate for an enterprise-level database application, not the lack
of competence in the Access developer, or poor implementation and poor
planning on management's part.

A BIG THANK YOU to those SMART SOFTWARE ENGINEERS. I just love this
program

Access is incredibly customizable, and I have to admit that I use it a lot
to automate tasks that have nothing to do with data storage on Windows
computers. And the ability to do "quickie" prototypes to show a proof of
concept is invaluable.

HTH.
Gunny

See http://www.QBuilt.com for all your database needs.
See http://www.Access.QBuilt.com for Microsoft Access tips and tutorials.
http://www.Access.QBuilt.com/html/expert_contributors2.html for contact
info.


"Mell via AccessMonster.com" <u18304@uwe> wrote in message
news:60b1155dc1814@xxxxxx
Yea, you are not alone with your experience in this or perseption. I hear
the
same from others as well.
I find that some businesses will pay (not alot), but just want a basic
tracking system with some bells. The bigger companies, I would think they
would not want to just use Access with native jet unless BE on SQL, etc?
I must say that the real experts are the ones that originally created this
software. Ms Access has so many things that it can do that it's hard to
know
it from head to toe. Nevertheless, I feel if an application has been
created
for the customers needs and it is functional, it has served it's purpose
and
A BIG THANK YOU to those SMART SOFTWARE ENGINEERS. I just love this
program,
I use this board for questions alot, I am no expert, but I don't give up
either, if I don't know, it's certainly not hard to ask or look up.



'69 Camaro wrote:
Hi, Mell.

Tell me, is the below link your site/business/individual?

Access.QBuilt.com is one of five commercial and non-commercial subdomains
for Q-Built Solutions, a small business which employs five consultants.
I'm
one of these consultants.

People tell me that most indivual owners/developers - Ms Access usually
own
there own business as a second job b/c not reliable enough for steady
income
(keep in mind) individual not big boys............... Is this true?

That's been my experience, too. The market is so flooded with people who
aren't yet competent in Access -- but pass themselves off as expert Access
developers because they can use the built-in wizards to create forms and
reports to dazzle computer-challenged business owners and managers -- that
many of the ones who are competent Access developers work in other
technologies or industries for their main income. Businesses just aren't
willing to pay money for what's widely percieved as "so easy that any
monkey
can do it," and "tinker toy" applications that cause a wide range of
problems, when, in fact, it's the lack of competence of the Access
developers (hired 'em "real cheap!") and occasionally the network
administrators who have caused the vast majority of the problems being
blamed on Access.

The only money I've ever made from working with Access was several years
ago
when I was a corporate Access developer for a little more than a year.
I'm
an Oracle DBA consultant now for larger businesses, but I also do computer
networking/administration and occasional database-driven Web sites powered
by MySQL for small businesses (only because MySQL is free with their Web
hosting packages).

I've seen the tremendous need in small- and medium-sized businesses for
small, stable database applications that Access would be perfect for, but
almost none of these business owners are willing to pay for that database
application, even when they know the computer automation will save
thousands
of man-hours per year. Well, some are willing to pay a high school
student
(who has no interest in computers or databases) to spend thousands of
hours
to build Access applications that don't work very well -- because these
students work for minimum wage, which is a whole lot cheaper (at least in
these business owners' minds) than spending hundreds of dollars for an
expert to build it correctly in a matter of a few hours.

You want to help these people, but you can't convince them that they need
a
competent Access developer because they firmly believe that they've got a
bargain database application, and it works just fine -- except for the
long
list of things that don't, including the safeguarding of data integrity.
But it's "good enough" for them.

But I've seen worse. Some business owners think that they can't afford to
hire IT people, so they spend thousands of hours foregoing business
opportunities worth many tens of thousands of dollars (or possibly
hundreds
of thousands of dollars per year) while they learn to build their own
computer network with disparate, outdated equipment -- picked it up "real
cheap!" -- and build a mission-critical Access database application that
they intend to run their entire business with, but it just doesn't work.

You want to help these people, too, but you can't afford to pay for the
minimum equipment required (they aren't willing to pay to replace their
bargain equipment that doesn't work together), and you can't afford to
spend
two weeks or more fixing their multiple computer, network, virus, and spam
problems before even starting on a database application, and the $100 for
your time doesn't even begin to cover the gasoline bill for the daily
trips
to their office for an entire month. ("Hey, it took me more than 2,000
hours and I still can't get it to work, but this is easy for you experts.
You can finish my application in a few days, because it's more than 95%
done! If you don't want the job, I can hire a high school dropout for
half
that price!") And they require you to come to their office daily to do
the
software development on your own laptop, even after you've fixed their
computer and network problems (at no charge, because the owner isn't
willing
to pay you to fix the problems he doesn't believe he created that prevent
Microsoft Office from being installed on each of his computers and a
database from being networked). This is because even though they can't
spare one of their own computers and desks for you to work on, they refuse
to pay you for all the hours you'd be wasting in front of the T.V. or on
the
phone talking to your kids instead of working on their application if the
manager wasn't there watching you like a hawk. And you try to explain to
the owner that this working arrangement means that, for tax purposes, you
are a temporary employee of his and he's required by law to pay half the
Social Security taxes on the money you earn from him, but he refuses
because
you're a "professional consultant," not one of his employees.

So it's rather difficult to make a steady income if you're a consultant
looking for customers, and you only work with Access. But perhaps others
have had more favorable business experiences working with Access in their
geographical locations.

HTH.
Gunny

See http://www.QBuilt.com for all your database needs.
See http://www.Access.QBuilt.com for Microsoft Access tips and tutorials.
http://www.Access.QBuilt.com/html/expert_contributors2.html for contact
info.

Hey that was great information.........

[quoted text clipped - 94 lines]
mdb
created on Access 2003 (default 2000)...

--
Message posted via http://www.accessmonster.com


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