> I think that it is better to question why developers still create so many simple CRUD applications.

Because clients keep throwing money at us.

Because people don't want a machine they can learn to use in order to solve their problems. They want their problems solved right now.

Yet spreadsheets are incredibly popular.

I am not claiming that every computer user should want to create simple CRUD applications. A few technically competent non-developers might wish to do so though. Many of us who have been around for a while have had to deal with someone creating an MS Access application that is eventually used by everyone in a department. Companies would often then pay for a "professional" reimplementation of the MS Access application that would take months or years and cost a fortune. Often the end result was something that did not work well and was hated by users.

> "Where is the next generation MS Access?"

In Sharepoint.

This is very accurate.

Back in the 90's, everybody wants app with DB capability. Thus MS Access fills the need. It's cute and perhaps less barrier to enter by non-technical people.

Fast forward to 2010, everybody wants an agile web-app that integrate nicely with BI, Access, Excel, Word, with version control and what not, with CMS capability, with alerts, RSS reader, portal like capability... here comes Sharepoint.

Zoho?

I am aware of things like Zoho and Oracle Application Express. These mostly seem like MS Access moved to the web, which is not a bad thing. There is obviously another step that needs to be taken to allow a large number of simple CRUD applications to be built by anyone who is technically competent but not a developer.

I've actually been working on exactly this for quite some time now. You can check it out at http://loggur.com.

I should note that a number of things are currently disabled on the site (like the mobile version and invite referrals), but the current information on the site should give an idea where Loggur's headed. A few things are disabled because just last week I decided to convert the entire backend to Node, mainly for Socket.io... because the idea is to let users edit and use apps together in real time... probably using a turn-based system or variations thereof. I was going to wait until after beta release to do this but decided it would probably save a lot of time and effort in the long run to knock it out while the code base is relatively small.

And I actually just now (re)hacked together the invitation system right after I saw your comment. Gotta seize the opportunity, even if it only means another 5-10 sign-ups! The plan was to wait until after the app builder is complete and use Loggur to build Loggur (i.e., recreate the majority of the current site), as it wouldn't take long at all; but the opportunity came up to do a shameless plug.

And I thought I was done coding for the day!

Barely noticeable text: "Help us get featured on", followed by the logos of TC, Mashable, etc.

Cute :-)

My day job is using Application Express. And yes, it's explainable as an Access-for-websites, backed by an Oracle database.