Realise it or not, you use a database every day. The phonebook is a database.
Electronic catalogues are databases.
Ordering and invoicing systems are databases. In fact, any organisation at all that employs people, sells products and services, or simply has a bank account is a database user. But it's this image of databases as massive corporate systems which blinds people to the fact that you can set up powerful data stores on your desktop or local server to help run even the smallest of businesses. So in these next few pages we'll try to cover as much ground as possible, explaining some fundamental database concepts and taking a tour of essential product features that databases should offer.