Microsoft Access
Microsoft Access is making a return to Microsoft Office, and will soon be offered as a free extra to many cloud customers.
In a recent announcement from Microsoft, the ‘Access Team’ confirmed that the popular business database tool would be making a return as a part of the standard package available to all Office 365 Business Premium customers.
Officially the move continues Microsoft’s commitment to keep expanding Office 365’s cloud service to make more features available (including the new Slack-style Microsoft ‘Teams’) giving Office 365 subscribers ever more for their money.
Unofficially, we wonder whether omitting Microsoft Access from the well-known ‘suite’ of Microsoft Apps (Word, Excel, Powerpoint and others) has seen Microsoft lose it’s 1990s database dominance to other platforms or CRM systems. Reintroducing the app may be timely for modern businesses that are increasingly interested in studying their data, and help encourage a wider audience to take a second look at the powerful program.
Recent iterations of the popular database management system have expanded on the traditional database store and report tools, allowing power users to use Access to develop web apps and other software, or act as the practical visual ‘front-end’ for more complex ‘back end’ database systems like Microsoft SQL Server or Oracle.
In addition, Access will be available with a set of enterprise data connector allowing Office 365 users to integrate their databases with Dynamics CRM, Salesforce and others.
Office 365 Business premium (which you can try through Lineal for free here) will include the latest version of Access to all new and existing customers from December 2016.
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