[liotier]

> Corporate IT doesn't like the Front Office getting Access, as they still ask for support when their home-brew app goes wrong.

The Access contraption then gets an ODBC backend to a proper database. Then parts of the Access Visual Basic spaghetti get ported to PHP. Other parts get ported to JSP. It ends up getting entirely ported - but for lack of budget for a full rewrite, the previously developed JSP parts are preserved. The whole thing doesn't take advantage of contemporary UI patterns because it closely matches the design of the original Access database. I'll spare you all the episodes of crippling slowness and the data corruption catastrophes that triggered each improvement increment.

On the other hand, the users managed to build themselves a serviceable tool when the IT wouldn't even speak to them without a ten-months project - and then they foisted it upon IT... From their point of view the ugly ten-years journey has been a success !

[gadders]

Anyone that has ever done, say, a Windows or Office upgrade for a large corporate knows the pain of cataloging all the End User Apps.

[liotier]

Oh yes - I forgot to mention the schlepping of VBS code across two Microsoft Office upgrades during the application's lifetime... And the migration exemptions that last for years while the porting is done - lots of love from the desktop IT department to this application...