My company has lots of data in Excel that would be much better in a database (think columns for Contact1, Contact2, Contact3 etc. It's horrible!!) Unfortunately nobody has Access and we don't want to pay for it for every PC. Is there an alternative that has the same functionality (easy to export to Excel, easy to make forms, easy to query)? I know of SQL, but have never really used it and don't know if you can make forms in the same was as Access as easily. Is there anything like it? (Ideally free:P) • • • • •.

I'm not sure that's as much a fault of Access as much as a lack of governance in a company. A database team can enforce protocols so that all efforts within a company tie well with already existing ones, so you don't have various offices reinventing the wheel, so anyone can look at a database and know what it's doing, etc. If you let everyone just build any tool they want willy-nilly, you get what you get. This isn't to say that you can't let developers anywhere in the company build a database, but there should at least be some set of policies they should abide by and perhaps an approval process before a database can be released.

Just making people comment their code would make a major difference. If you're dealing with customer/contact info, have you looked at systems like,,, or any of the other myriad of CRM solutions out there? Although you can definitely delve into building some line of business databases using something like and, it sounds like this isn't your primary job and you may be better off using either a pre-made solution, or an easily customized web-based solution. Other options if you need to build something easily that doesn't fit into the CRM mould would be, (again!),,, etc.

Because you might wind up buying Microsoft Office for Mac anyway for other tasks, Word is a cost-effective solution to your publishing needs. The interface is similar and some of the menus are. I have recently bought Microsoft Office 2011 for Mac, which is very good, and I wanted to know wheather in the near future there is going to be Microsoft Access for Mac as I am using this software for my GCSEs at school and may even use it at sixth form.