[KLUG Advocacy] Re: Desktop Penguins -- "Ability Office" read Access MDB and has ADO support

[Adam Williams]

>>When it comes up that there is no M$-Office on Linux,
>Of course people forget that MS Office isn't even a proprietary standard
>since it is self-INcompatible.  Not only between versions, but as well
>as the version that runs on Mac.

Yes, but it is a familiarity standard.  Which is WAY more important. 
And like my recent spreadsheet thread showed, Excel worked,  neither
Gnumeric or OO did.  And this wasn't about importing files, etc... it
was about running the stinkin' formulas.

>>I point out things like Open/Star-Office.  THEN I get the
>>statement that people need M$-Access
>MS Access is the _ultimate_bastard_ of the world.  But people blindly
>use it.  And the world requires 50% more IT workers as a result.  ;-P

Economic stimulus.

>>and how to do that with the Linux office products that don't
>>have a database.  hen I point out that Star has a database
>>module (that I've never tried, and know absolutely nothing about)
>If I remember correctly, StarOffice actually supports Sleepycat
>(Berkeley db), and a few other methods of data access (SQL too?).  The
>default of Adabas (or whatever it is called) is not all it's limited to.

True, and ODBC works great.  But it doesn't have the form, report, and
quasi-app-developement logic that Access provides.  Not even close.

>>I get the question about the thousands of M$-Access databases
>>already created and if any Linux office product will convert
>>them overas easily as it converts Word/Excel documents.
>>hat's where I'm stumped.  Any good ways to do this???
>There is an Office suite for Linux, ported from the Windows version with
>WINELIB inluding Microsoft DAO (Data Access Objects).  Hold on, I'm
>digging up the info ...
>"Ability Office 2000" Alpha Release for Linux:
>http://ability.com/linux/

I'll take a look at these and see if they merit including in my data
access presentation.