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Today’s guest blogger is Darren Myher. Darren is the VP Operations of Blue Link Associates Limited, a Gold Certified Microsoft ISV Partner. Blue Link’s flagship product: “Blue Link Elite” is a fully integrated accounting and inventory management system built using Microsoft Access and SQL Server.
Darren has attended several of our developer kitchen events over the last couple of years. I liked his perspective about Access and asked him if he would share his experience with our audience.
-- Clint
Every company has something that makes their business unique – a competitive advantage that needs to be supported and enhanced by the software they choose to run their business. Using Microsoft Access as the front end UI to a SQL Server back-end allows Blue Link to build and customize robust applications that meet the unique requirements of every client – at a cost, and in a timeframe that makes the solutions we develop both feature-rich and affordable.
Building Applications with Microsoft Access & SQL Server = Competitive Advantage
To me, building solutions in Microsoft Access is about giving my company – and my customers a competitive advantage.
I gain competitive advantage because I can offer my clients more functionality at a lower cost and in a shorter timeframe than any of my competitors. In turn, my customers gain competitive advantage by having custom-tailored software solutions that incorporate features that they just wouldn’t be able to afford otherwise.
Rapid Application Prototyping and Development
Access enables both rapid application prototyping and development. When I sit with a customer to build a user interface prototype, the result is a clear vision of what the software will look like and how end users will interact with the software. Having that clear vision reduces the time it takes to build and test the solution, and ensures that the client gets what was discussed during the specification stage.
You don’t realize what you get for “free” with Access until you try to use something that isn’t Access to do the same thing:
Recently, I tried using .net development technologies (because that’s what everyone seems to wants you to do), to create a data-centric application. The project took months of development and went way over budget. What the experience taught me first hand is that you don’t realize just how much functionality you get “for free” with Access until you discover that you have to re-create it all from scratch in .net. Here are just a few of the things that Access includes that you don’t get with .net:
To work around the above, you end up either having to write your own controls, or purchase 3rd party controls. When you go with 3rd party controls, they come with their own set of problems – memory leaks, design issues, etc. With Access, you get everything right out of the box and can get busy solving the business problem.
Microsoft Access’ support for SQL Server means you can build enterprise-quality applications with rock-solid back-ends and still take advantage of rapid application development for the front-end UI.
Summary
In a matter of days, I can meet with a client, identify the business requirements, and build a prototype of the user-interface elements. Using the prototype I can estimate the time required to complete the project, quote the client based on that time estimate and deliver a working solution at a fixed price and in a very short time frame.
The end result: More features, more functionality, less time, lower cost. That translates to competitive advantage for me – and my customers.
About Blue Link
Blue Link builds ERP software solutions for small (typically owner-managed) companies. Blue Link’s flagship product: Blue Link Elite is a completely integrated accounting system with full CRM, Lead Management, Quoting, Sales Orders, Purchasing, Inventory Management, Work Flow Management, features and more.
Click here to view a demo of Blue Link Elite’s Order Entry system:
To learn more about Blue Link products, visit www.bluelink.ca.
Comments: (9) Collapse
"Recently, I tried using .net development technologies (because that’s what everyone seems to wants you to do), to create a data-centric application. The project took months of development and went way over budget." So, so true. At my current client, we have a team working on .Net application that is taking what seems like an incredible amount of time for a very simple business application. The thing I observe is that the .net guys are constantly talking in terms of technical implementation details (design patterns, libraries, etc), whereas we Access guys talk in terms of business rules and what the application is supposed to do. We rarely need to discuss low-level implementation details. This does not mean our applications are sloppy at all, it's just we don't need to be constantly side-tracked in the technical minutiae. Contrary to the belief by those programmers who look down upon Access programmers, well-designed Access applications are very easy-to-maintain. I just imagine how much *more* productive we could be, if we had an IDE that wasn't a decade old...
My company solely uses Access for our apps. We have considered other options as our scope grows beyond the assumed limitations of Access. But we always decide after a short bit of consideration that, just like the author says, it would take so long to redevelop in .NET, and still not have the exact functionality that we want.
Darren and CirusB I am in complete agreement!
And let us not forget "free", fool-proof,stable data binding.
Still we feel pressure to get on that .NET bandwagon, no matter how much it costs (and that is alot).
It's not that Access falls short, rather Microsoft tirelessly promotes .NET as THE developers (geeky) "development platform" and Access as a (wussy) tinkerers "Office tool". Why must Microsoft position (condem) - Access as something far less than what it is?
Hello Daren,
Thanks for a very interesting post.
I noticed that in your main navigation form you use a treeview control. This control is not part of the built in controls in Access. Can you please write a little about this control? What control is it? Any issues with deploying such a control? etc..
Thanks
Gilad
Sorry Darren for misspelling your name above. Gilad
My biggest gripe with Access is that it does not scale. It is based on the old fat client principle, and there is no middle tier. No central business layer that enforces common business rules, security, authentication, etc. It is a UI with most of the business logic in connected to a DB with the rest of the business logic in stored procs.
hello, darren . . (great post) To talk more about access v/s other platforms. . I have a very similar experience, in 2003 when the .net platform was getting a lot of bandwith . . . i went to last vegas for an avent, the event was with access and .net, i decided to go to every .net instead of access . . I invested a lot of effort to convert some apps to .net, when i realized what i will loose if i leave access, i decided to go back to access . . . Now with 2007, and comming of 2010 i see access as a great, GREAT platform for creating my apps, and delivering my clients a low cost, rapid solution. I still think there are some areas to grow . . The Access to SQL Connection compared to .Net, access is slow and needs to be improved. . But i know the Access Team will definetly gives us a solution, definetly this is somtrhing they will take care.
@Gilad: The treeview control is the Microsoft Common Controls 6.0 (SP6) treeview control. If I look the properties of the control, it shows:
OLE Class: TreeCtrl
Class: MSComctlLib.TreeCtrl.2 When the form loads it runs code to initialize the control, storing the images used by the control in an imagelist variable, and running code to build the tree from a table that we maintain with the menu options.
Great post. Access is a much better tool (than .Net) for RAD. I wish Microsoft would give it more "developer" attention.
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