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While the failings of MS Access are many, it is still a light weight desktop database. OOo Base was added to support the need for a light weight desktop database integrated into the OOo suite. OOo does contain front-end hooks to full SQL databases through ODBC, JDBC, etc. but the need for something simpler for storing names and addresses to be able to do a mail merge had been a major failing of OOo for quite some time. Base was the answer. Simple, light weight, and reliable. It does the stuff you would do with MS Access and a bit more, but doesn't take the place of a more serious database such as MySQL or Postgre. It is NOT a half-assed database and still needs some refinements, just a simple solution to light weight database needs - think SQLite here.

Hope that helps.

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