COST OF DEVELOPMENT One of the reasons why Microsoft Access is consistently the database of choice is that it is a less expensive alternative to larger database systems, such as Oracle or SQL Server, which require a tremendous amount of set up and maintenance costs.
SOFTWARE INTEGRATION Since Access is a Microsoft Office product, it has been designed to integrate well with other products in the Microsoft Office Suite, Access is such a widely used database system that other software manufacturers are more likely to provide the ability to interface directly to Access than any other desktop database system.
ODBC (OPEN DATABASE CONNECTIVITY) COMPLIANT Access has the ability to use data stored in Access/Jet, Microsoft SQL Server, Oracle and other ODBC compliant data containers including MySQL and PostgreSQL. Software developers and data architects have used Access to easily develop application software. Non-programmers, also known as “power users” can use Access to build simple applications. While some object-oriented techniques are supported, it falls short of being a fully object-oriented development tool.
LEGACY DATA Access has the ability to easily import many data formats so that your existing data is not lost. This feature can not only save 100′s of hours of input time, but also eliminate potential human input error.
DISTRIBUTION One of the benefits of using Microsoft Access is its Jet Database format, which contains not only the application but also the data in one file. The ability to have the application and data in one file makes it extremely convenient to distribute the entire application to various users who can run the application in disconnected environments.
SCALABILITY If your company is growing, one of the benefits of Microsoft Access is that it has upgrade capabilities. If the size of your database is continually growing and your performance starts to suffer, you can easily upgrade to SQL Server along with an Access Data Project (ADP).
UNIQUE IDENTIFIER Each piece of information is assigned a unique identifier. This is extremely important since it controls that each piece of information is only entered once and eliminates human and duplication errors.