Need Advice! Help Please

Hi,
I would like to ask for an advice. I need to prepare report, which shows advantages and disadvantages of two implementations. Whole system works like this:
There are two modules in it:
1. Employee module - for entering data
2. Central module - for gathering, processing and exporting data

Modules communicates off-line. There's no need for sys. to be extra fast, but database can grow big (lots of text fields). What solution is better and why:
1. Write an application (in Borland Builder) and use some database engine (which one is the best?)
2. Create database in Microsoft Access (TM)?

Thanks for help,
Matthev