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I recently been implementing a database frontend for a MySQL database in both MSAccess and OO-Base. I can say with confidence, Access is terrible in terms of it's integration with external non-MS database servers (I never tried with MS-SQL). This is typical Mmicrosoft: won't integrate with anything other than MS product, to maximise their Vendor lockin. By contrast, Base is a joy as a frontend to either MySQL or Postgres and it's getting better as the OOo-native drivers for these databases mature (this removes the need for ODBC or JDBC). Base's Forms functionality doesn't have as wider range of control as Access but it has all the basics and it's very easy to use. You can design your tables (Access won't allow this) including relationships and you can execute SQL directly where necessary (if you can do this in Access I never found it; a UI failure if nothing else). Following Sun's purchase of MySQL I think we can expect integration with Base to improve further.

Base is still maturing, it clear. The "user management" feature of Base is not implemented yet; it's be great when it's working (multi-user support in Access is also absent as far as I can see - it's uses lock-files). Report generation is Base's biggest weakness and, I'm afraid, the Sun Report Builder doesn't improve this much. Laying out reports with this is a PITA. Still, there are many other better reporting tools like Eclipse BIRT which do a proper job and can connect directly to the server, or even directly to the HSQLDB (it's all java).

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