I watched that the other day.

David, thanks for posting this, and I changed the subject of this thread to the title slide of this guy's video, which says "How the Worst Database Conquered the Entire Industry."

I watched the whole thing, and while the guy makes some good points about the history of Microsoft Access and its competitors, he's also got quite a few things wrong. Especially calling Access the "worst database." LOL.

I've been working with Access since 1994, and I worked with several of those older database systems before that, so I've got a few things to say about this one.

I've already started putting together a video response where I'll cover what he got right and what he got wrong. Stay tuned! Thanks again for sharing it.

It was tough to get thru that video. That guy's voice. Ugh.

I worked on these databases and feel qualified to say that the main methodological error in the video is treating products with distinct architectures and development models as directly comparable technical solutions. A clear line must be drawn between the xBase ecosystem and Microsoft Access, which integrated a relational Jet database engine, a visual application development environment, and a robust programming model on Windows. Furthermore, the claim that Borland held over 70% of the market is bs, even after acquiring Ashton tate, its total market share did not reach 45%.

Attributing Access's success solely to competitors strategic missteps or vastly exaggerating FoxPro's performance (which was only superior in index optimized queries via Rushmore technology overall performans is a big fat ?) is overly reductionist. Access succeeded by leveraging Microsoft's accumulated expertise, exploiting its dominance on Windows, and consolidating user favorite features into a unified environment. Additionally, framing its distribution as an unlimited, no cost advantage is fundamentally flawed, as Access was included only in the Office Professional edition, not the Standard edition. Ultimately, Microsoft delivered an innovative approach by unifying a Windows native platform, a relational engine, visual development tools, and a smart distribution model, making it necessary to separate market mythologies from true technical capabilities.