i work for a water utility and have some databases in paradox that have worked well for me for nearly 20 years. each time i have been asked to do something new with them, paradox has been able to handle it.

that said - paradox has been repeatedly crashing due to incompatibility with other county/agency software of late.

others in my division are clamoring to switch to access for various reasons:
1. its easy interoperability with GIS. (side note, i have never had trouble using my
Pdox data in GIS, but have not been using ArcInfo as much as others)
2. they see it as the way the larger agency is headed
3. they are newer and more familiar with access than paradox

to complicate issues - our billing data will also be migrated to an oracle based data system, though it is not kept in-house.

with that introduction my questions are:
1. what will be the fate of paradox with Windows 7 ? will it be updated as well ?
2. can someone who actually has expertise in all three databases offer a non-biased opinion as to the pros and cons of each ?
3. if one may ultimately have to migrate to oracle, is it worth taking the intermediate step of moving to access ?
4. will there be any effort to make paradox more prominent again so we don't have to give it up?

in terms of pros and cons - my experience with paradox is greater, but so far....
it seem to me that each may have advantages. i have listed some below as a start in terms of how it seems to me so far - but interested to hear from others who know more.

just learning access, but it seems so far that paradox is better in these ways:
1. more intuitive operations on fields in querying
2. more key fields allowed
3. warning of problems when setting up referential integrity after the fact,
rather than the the software just refusing to do it. enables one to geneate a
problems table.
4. more simultaneous users ? (i have read, not experienced, that one).
5. i am just beginner in access, but at least so far it seems that paradox is
more forgiving about the use of tables and fields in queries, forms and
reports ?

access seems like it may be better in these ways:
1. easier use of many to many relationships in sub-forms -
(not sure on that one)
2. people claim it integrates more easily with GIS - but i am not convinced,
still, in all fairness, ArcInfo does seem to be directly Access based....

oracle seems like it may be better in these ways:
1. handles largest number of data records, fields, users ?
2. anything else ?