What is Access?
Microsoft Access (MS Access) is a tool created by Microsoft for the sole purpose of allowing anyone to build a structured, user-friendly environment to store, query and edit data.
Access is a very powerful, and in many respects unrivalled, tool praised for being quick off the line in terms of raw development time, easy to use, easy to maintain and compared to other database solutions, cheap.
Related Data
Access' real power comes from its ability to manage related data which is something that is incredibly difficult to do with other Microsoft tools like MS Excel or other spreadsheet applications.
Related Data is data that is different in it's values but still very much a part of the same overall structure such as a Customers Details (i.e Name, address) and the Customers numerous Orders (i.e Products, quantities, Order Dates).
Under what conditions would Access be useful?
MS Access is an excellent solution for:
- Small Business applications
- Custom Software applications
- Data analysis
- Personal databases
- Big Data for small and medium businesses
Who uses Access?
*Microsoft Access has a market share of about 11.1%. That means that of Database Management systems world wide Access occupies 11.1%.
Access is the most popular desktop database on the market and used by many fortune 500 Companies.
* ref (https://enlyft.com/tech/products/microsoft-access)