On Nov 3, 2003, at 5:49 AM, Lee Einer wrote:

> The one area where we have a problem competing with the M$ Office 
> Suite (IMO) is in the area of an easy-to-use replacement for MS 
> Access. With that exception, everything that I could do on my old 
> Microsoft OS, I can do as well or better  on Linux.
>
> Actually, the other missing feature is the spontaneous autocorruption 
> of system files, which used to happen almost monthly when I was using 
> Windows 95 and 98. That feature seems to be missing on the Linux OSs I 
> have used.

This is a great example of how perceptions differ. I find access a 
horrible program that's almost unusable if you want to do something 
that that the wizards don't support. Furthermore, I think Access will 
stay poor as long as MS is selling the Desktop edition of SQL Server 
for 'serious' desktop database development. MS would be shooting 
themselves in the foot if they let Access get good.

I once wanted to do something in Access and after a frustrating couple 
of days gave up and called MS tech support. The very nice engineer 
walked me through a process of getting to an obscure dialog box and 
entering a 'magic' string. When I asked how, in the future, I was 
supposed to be able to figure out such 'magic' strings for myself he 
said "Well, you'd have to have the source code. Just call MS tech 
support."