I just started a data management assessment for a new client with my colleague Emily Graham. The organization uses a dizzying array of contact and process management tools from rolodex to high end commercial nonprofit CRM software. A custom-developed Microsoft Access database sits squarely in the middle.

The folks working on it and supporting it are solid, experienced staff. They are not principally database developers, however, and the state of the database and its pattern of staff usage reflects this. Retaining it will require a reasonable investment of time and effort over the next year.

Yet as we start to imagine off-the-shelf alternatives, the degree of careful molding to the mission and objectives of the organization strikes us. It may turn out possible and sensible to move everything to a web-based system but it certainly will not be easy to find a clear, cost-effective replacement.

Microsoft has gone through a lot of steps (and missteps—anyone remember Visual InterDev?) to get to the maturity of its present day web offerings, SQL Server and ASP.NET. Along the way, to speed developer adoption of the new, there have been steady rumors of Access’ impending death at the hands of the Redmond marketeers. And as with other such situations, the rumors have been exaggerated.

Here are five reasons why Access hasn’t died and is not likely to die soon even now in the generally welcome age of all things web.

First, it offers an amazingly powerful prototyping tool. Access fits well when you need to quickly create a working prototype of the design that has emerged from planning. Some web environments like Ruby on Rails  also lend themselves to iterative, agile development processes. Though its look remains, well, Access-like, Access is superb for getting high degrees of “business rules” and complex data linkages together for review of organizational workflow.

For situations that do not need a web site—internal staff only, security issues, small localized team—that working prototype can transition into the finished product.

Second, Access has the best blend of professional programming tools (based on Visual Basic and SQL data manipulation languages) plus an environment that accidental techies can master. Other databases, such as FileMaker, may make it easier for non-developers to get started. And we have been impressed by the progress that Open Office’s “Base” shows toward a working user-oriented database management system. For their part, Web environments including dot net offer higher end programming tools, and there are certainly more powerful SQL-based data engines.

All that said, for a typical nonprofit or small business environment, Access provides a unique meeting ground for the software developer and the accidental techie. An intermediate level database administrator can lead their organization toward reasonable self-sufficiency vis-à-vis the consultant, and for some, this is an important consideration.

Third, Access has great reporting tools. OK, it’s not as powerful as Crystal Reports or other high end reporting tools. For organizations that already have Microsoft Office, and for nonprofits eligible to get it through “charitable” licensing at techsoup.org, Access reporting is essentially a free resource. For us, in many situations, data collection may take place these days on web sites based on not just Microsoft’s SQL Server, but also non-Microsoft and generally non-Windows based databases, such as MySQL and PostgreSQL. Having a reporting database connected and synchronized to the web site gives analysts, planners, evaluators, the opportunity to do sophisticated reporting based on templates we or other developers can easily set up. Access can connect to commercial software such as Quick Books as well, where the software provides the opening for direct connection to data.

Fourth, because it is part of Microsoft Office, Access is great where clients have strong needs for mail merged letters, controlling spreadsheets, or even piping data into Powerpoint presentations. There has been ten years experience now with the shared functionality to “automate” one part of Office from another. Other software can also do this, including web based software, but it comes easy and naturally among the Office products. And again, the transfer of knowledge to the non developer is also easier. More generally, Access has the programming tools to make it easy to integrate with lots of software these days. A complete solution for a client may involve integrating some Access and some of packaged software.

Fifth, Access databases do scale remarkably well. With proper set up and tuning, it is possible to have fairly large data sets and fairly large user groups hammering away at the same database. When the “pure” Access environment starts to confine, it has become easier (though still not a piece of cake) to migrate the data part of an Access database to SQL Server or MySQL and keep the same menus, forms and reports. And when you have remote users in other offices, Windows remote desktop based on the server-based Terminal Services also can extend an Access database’s life span.

So, its not that hard to see the reasons for Access’ longevity. It's not necessarily the best in anything, but it comes in at the top for a lot of things that taken together can mean it stays as part of the picture. Of course, these days, our first thought for new systems does go to web-based options, whether Microsoft-based, Drupal or other options we have. It is important to question the client planning team about usage beyond the immediate moment. And simpler data collection needs for contact management, donations, and othe processes can often be met with packaged software. The further out we look, the more likely we will push for a web-based system or for customizing or integrating something commercial. Yet all things considered, we will keep Access in our tool-kit along with its web-based cousins for a while to come.