Re: MS Access usefulness and size restrictions

In article <3B2664D4.99AD3EFC_at_attws.com>, Daniel A. Morgan <Daniel.Morgan_at_attws.com> writes

> perhaps you can explain why it is the Fortune
>500 companies such as Boeing and AT&T spend hundreds of millions of dollars
>migrating software from Access and SQL Server on Windows to Oracle and DB/2 on
>UNIX and never the other way around. And amazingly enough ... always due to user
>complaints which stop after the migration.
>

Funnily enough, I've just installed an Access/Jet replacement for an Oracle system for a major company. You may have heard of BP Amoco?

They wanted something *appropriate* to the size of the need. Apparently when the original Oracle system was put in place it took three months to get all the required data showing on the forms and reports (minor things like purchase orders.

I built the Access system in three weeks.

I was contracting recently for a firm that supplies an off-the peg Oracle based system to employment agencies. One of their biggest problems is that many of their smaller (<100 employee) clients have no in-house Oracle DBA, so they have to do maintenance by dial-up. Something like SQL Server, with its self-tuning features would make life a lot easier.

Funnily enough, the schema design for this system is appalling. This isn't just my opinion; their UK head programmer was vociferous about the ER diagram that came with the latest data dictionary from their US head office. Just shows that not all Oracle developers know a lot about relational design.

-- 
Albert Marshall
Database Developer
Marshall Le Botmel Ltd
01242 222017