1. Market Trends for Microsoft Access Commercial Products and Services
By Luke Chung
President FMS, Inc.

3. Homeland Security Committee
Testified before the House Homeland Security Committee in November
Introduced by Chairman Michael McCaul of Texas
Video

4. FMS Background Founded in 1986
We’re experienced commercial software developers: first product in 1987
In 1993, we introduced one of the first Microsoft Access products for Access 1.1
We’re the world’s leading developer of 3rd party products for Microsoft Access
We currently offer 13 products for the Microsoft Access and VB 6 communities

5. Access Products from FMS
Total Access Developer Suite:
Analyzer (database documentation and analysis)
CodeTools (code utilities, line numbering)
Components (ActiveX controls)
Detective (difference detector)
SourceBook (source code library)
Total Access Ultimate Suite (Developer Suite plus):
Admin (Jet database control)
Agent (database maintenance)
er (personalized blaster)
Memo (RTF memo fields)
Speller (spell check objects)
Startup (Access and database version)
Statistics (data analysis)
Total ZipCode Database (zip code subscription)

6. Offering custom consulting services since 1987
Services include design, development, testing, deployment; system review and optimization
Wide range of solutions for commercial and government agencies
Most work related to customizing SQL Server, Visual Studio .NET, Access/Office, and Azure
Hosting Access application for launching via RemoteApp
Related work with Exchange/Outlook, SharePoint, Android, etc.
More info at

7. Advanced data analytics with link charts, geospatial timelines, social network analysis (SNA) metrics
Sentinel Visualizer Product for counter-terrorism, law enforcement, defense, fraud detection, etc.
Led to investment by InQTel, the CIA’s venture capital arm – our only outside investor
More info at:

8. Commercial Software Overview
Commercial Off the Shelf Software (COTS)
Business model based on licensing rather than billable hours
Product Features
Addresses a specific business need or pain of customers
Should solve the problem almost completely with no additional FMS developer customization
Requires professionally written user manual
Context sensitive help
Trial version where possible
Quality Assurance
Testing process with multiple Access versions and Windows
Regression testing for new releases

9. COTS Business Model Marketing generate leads
High volume, low touch sales model (transactional)
Short sales cycle
Low revenues per sale
Opposite of services which is high touch, low volume
Post-sales support required
High initial investment
Product development
Marketing and pre-sales
Ability to cross-sell and bundle products
Selling licenses rather than hours (highly scalable)

10. COTS Infrastructure Customer Service and Sales Product Delivery
Handle presales
Online and offline order taking
Credit card processing and accounting
Returns and exchanges
Integrated ordering with delivery
Product Delivery
Electronic Software Downloads (ESD)
Physical CDs mailed
Online activation of licenses
Product Support
Full time support via telephone, , and online forum
System to track inquiries, bugs, and feature requests
Products document crashes with auto-generated error logs

11. Custom Software Services
Selling expertise to solve a specific customer need
Selling trust and personalized service
Service types
Staff augmentation (contracted job)
Time and material
Project based (fixed price)
Providing services with a team
Managing client expectations
Managing projects, tasks, personnel
Staffing the right people with the right skills; training
Contracts, billings, and collections

12. Microsoft Access Version History
Nov 1992: Microsoft Access 1.0 released at COMDEX
Mar 93: Access 1.1
1994: Access 2.0 (Windows 3.1; 4 MB RAM)
1995: Access 95 with Office 95 (supports ActiveX controls)
1997: Access 97 with Office 97
Access 2000 (version 8)
New MDB format; ADPs added; VBA/VB6 IDE
Access 2002 (version 9)
Access 2003 (version 10)
Access 2007 (version 12)
New ACCDB format; ribbons
Access 2010 (version 14)
Access 2013 (version 15)

13. FMS Product Launches 1993: Total Access for Access 1.1
Evolved into Total Access Analyzer
1994: Total Access Speller
1995: Total Access Statistics and Total Access Detective
1996: Total Access Agent, Total Access CodeTools, Total Access Components, Total Access Memo, Total Access SourceBook
1998: Total Access Inspector 2000
2001: Total ZipCode Database
2003: Total Access Admin, Total Access er, Total Access Startup
New versions of most products with each Access version

14. Major Access Releases 1992 launch was the first Windows based database
Took Microsoft from 0% database market share to dominance with Access 1.1 then 2.0
1995: Access 95 was technically flawed but integration with Office 95 secured it as THE desktop database
1997: Access 97 fixed Access 95 and was quickly adopted
2000: Access 2000 broke MDB database compatibility
Slowed transition from Access 97 to 2000
Affected by Y2K issues
ADPs introduced
2007: Access/Office 2007 introduced ribbons

15. SQL Server Releases 1995: SQL Server 6 1996: SQL Server 6.5
2000: SQL Server 2000 (version 8)
2003: SQL Server bit
2005: SQL Server 2005 (version 9)
2008: SQL Server 2008 (version 10)
2010: SQL Server 2008 R2 (version 10.5)
2012: SQL Server 2012 (version 11)
2014: SQL Server 2014 (version 12)

16. Visual Basic/Studio Releases
Visual Studio .NET 7 (7.0 in 2002 and 7.1 in 2003)
Visual Studio .NET 2005
Visual Studio .NET 2008
Visual Studio .NET 2010
Visual Studio .NET 2012
Visual Studio .NET 2013

17. Other Products and Trends
As Visual Basic 3/4/6 were released many programmers migrated to it
Solutions without the need to install Access
Installation and DLL hell issues
As SQL Server evolved and became more economical, more data migrated to it
Addressed security, corruption, and scalability issues
Internet solutions cannot be created in Access
Mobility solutions cannot be created in Access
Compatibility issues between Access versions

18. Access Relevance Declines
With the growth of the web and mobility, Access addresses a smaller percentage of database needs
Deploying and updating standalone solutions with Access remains challenging
Access Web cannot solve similar solutions as Access desktop solutions

19. Microsoft Access Desktop Advantages
Remains a rapid application development (RAD) environment with integrated database, code, forms, reports, etc. for Windows
Integrates with SQL Server data and SQL Azure
Integrates with multiple data sources
Simple deployment if Access version is already installed
Office remains a huge market
Allows end users to create solutions beyond Excel

20. Balkanization Trends Among different Access versions
97 lasted a long time
2003 remains popular
2007 and 2010 remains strong
2013 slowly growing
Different technologies have divided developers
Classic Visual Basic vs. C++
Visual Studio .NET between C# and VB.NET
SQL Server vs. My SQL, Oracle, Hadoop
Java vs. VS.NET
Mobility dominated by IOS and Android, not .NET

21. Microsoft Access Add-in Market
Market peaked
Declined through 2007
Conference attendance declined after 9/11 in 2001
2006: Pinnacle Publishing stopped Smart Access
2007: Access Advisor Magazine stopped publishing
Since 2007, market has declined slowly
Dominance of SEO for internet searching
Marketing based Google advertising
Giving Google money to support Microsoft products
Lack of Microsoft support for 3rd party products

22. Access Product Market and FMS
Very few commercial 3rd party vendors
FMS remains the dominant (last?) major provider
Lots of existing Access database solutions and users
Market is one third the size of its peak
Marketing costs are significantly lower for online versus print and direct mail
Remains bigger than our product business before Access
Diversified into data analytics with our Sentinel Visualizer product
Future Access web products?

23. Access Development Services
Microsoft Access only solutions are limited
Taking over legacy applications (hospice service)
Few new Access applications
Opportunities
Migrating Excel to Access/databases
Upsizing data from Access to SQL Server
Applications hosted on SQL Azure
Using Terminal Services and Remote App to host Access applications over the web
Services for creating Access Web solutions?

24. FMS Web Site: fmsinc.com
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