Hi Stefan.
I can't give you a definative answer; hopefully you will get several replies
and be able to piece something together.
About 4 years ago, Microsoft announced that there would be no further
versions of JET, only service patches. Since then, there have been 8
significant patches (plus some minor variations), but no new version.
At the same time, MS tried to make it very easy to use SQL Server as the
storage engine, making MSDE available and the ADP format. Some have found
that useful. Others find the flexibility and simplicity of JET much easier -
particularly very small businesses and not-for-profit groups who have no
database administrators on staff, perhaps no full-time IT staff.
MS is concentrating on SQL Server Express:
http://msdn.microsoft.com/isapi/gom...e8-826a-482a-8264-b1836f28fd79&DisplayLang=en
and trying to build into the product some of the good aspects of reports in
Access:
http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/...01-2e2f-4bc7-84af-149b7637f807&DisplayLang=en
Don't take it as gospel, but I would expect MS to continue supporting JET in
the next version of Office, and beyond. Access is the most widely used
database ever created. There are just too many JET databases in use for them
to be able to dump it any time soon. While it has its flaws and limitations,
it is simple, efficient, and flexible.
As an analogy, JET is a pick-up truck, and SQL Server is a prime mover. The
prime mover is a bigger investment, costs more to run and maintain, has more
inertia, is less flexible, and requires further investment for loading (data
interface) and unloading (reporting). The pickup truck is much easier to
buy, get on the road, maintain, zips around well, and it comes with a really
neat little crane built-in so you can load the unload your data very easily,
and a full programming language so you won't get stuck. Trying to stick the
back of the pickup truck onto the prime mover does not work well IMHO.
Well, you asked in an Access group, so you probably expect a bias, but I'm
thinking that there will always be *far* more people who need a pickup truck
than need a prime mover.
