General advice about what data solution should be used

[Tark221]

Hi there,

I thought I would throw this out there and see if I can soak up some advice.

At work I routinely build small project applications in Microsoft Access 2003-2010. Most of these are built with 10-20 users in mind. I use the normal process's of splitting the database with the end user using a version controlled MDE. I sometimes need to use Excel as the front end if the client doesn't have MS Access as they don't even like installing the run time grrr.

I would like to upgrade my back end solution to something else, for the time being I will keep using Access as the Front end but I feel there could be some better solutions than Access.

Any suggestions would be welcome (free license solutions would be better)

 

[CJ_London]

only free options that I am aware of are sql server express and mySQL

 

[Tark221]

I will check out SQL Service Express, thanks

 

[CJ_London]

with regards front end, I've yet to find anything better than Access for ease of development for client based solutions. I've done some work with WPF which can produce some amazing look/feel forms but development time (for me at this time) is 3-4 times longer.

Access starts to lose out when you need a WAN/Internet solution - web forms have very basic functionality and you can do much more with things like visual studio and toad - but a steep learning curve.