FileMaker Ships Bento; $49

The preview version has been out for a while, but today FileMaker
announced that Bento is officially shipping. The price is $49 (or $99
for a 5-license package). Here's the press release:

SANTA CLARA, Calif., Jan. 8 /PRNewswire/
FileMaker, Inc. today announced the immediate availability of Bento, a
stylish, personal database created to help Mac users organize their
lives (for more info and to buy Bento, go to http://www.filemaker.com/bento_=
ship_pr).
Designed specifically for Mac OS X Leopard, Bento is an exceptionally
easy way to organize contacts, calendars, projects, events, and more
-- all in one place.

With the intuitive iTunes-style interface in Bento, users can
accomplish any of the following in minutes:

-- Manage virtually unlimited contact details
-- Coordinate events, parties, and fundraisers
-- Track projects, assignments and deadlines
-- Connect related information together to see more details
-- Prioritize things that need to get done
-- Catalog inventory, donations and items for sale
-- Record hours worked and payments due
-- Assign ratings to service providers and sellers
-- Create libraries for music, movies and media
-- Store files and photos related to projects and events

Bento is affordably priced at $49 U.S., or $99 for a family pack of
five licenses, and is available on the FileMaker Web store
(store.filemaker.com), at Apple retail and web stores, and other
places where software is sold.

Singing Bento's praises

Since the public preview of Bento began Nov. 13, more than 140,000
copies have been downloaded. And users and the media have been
praising Bento's breakthroughs:

"I, for one, never thought I'd see a database able to achieve that
level
of simplicity. Yet another reason to consider a Mac?"
NetworkWorld.com

"FileMaker's new database has a friendly iWork look and feel. It's
a
database for the rest of us." MacLife

"With Bento, I can organize everything, including projects,
deadlines and
tasks. My fellow designers are amazed at Bento's intuitiveness,
ease-of-
use, and ability to be changed on the fly. They are all clamoring
for it,"
says designer Gordon Wong.

"As an optometrist, I also do a lot of presentations and projects.
With
Bento, I can organize presentations and track projects, to-dos,
timelines
and deadlines," reports Dr. John Warren. "I've been searching for
a tool
that works smoothly with Mail, iCal and Address Book -- and Bento
delivers."

System Requirements

Bento requires Mac OS X v.10.5 Leopard on a Mac computer with an
Intel, PowerPC G5 or PowerPC G4 (867MHz or faster) processor. A
minimum of 512MB of RAM and 1GB of hard drive space is recommended. A
CD drive is required for installation of boxed software.

About FileMaker, Inc.

FileMaker, Inc. develops award-winning database software. Its products
include the legendary FileMaker Pro product line for Windows, Mac and
the Web, and the new Bento personal database for Mac. Millions of
customers, from individuals to large organizations, rely on FileMaker,
Inc. software to manage, analyze and share information. FileMaker,
Inc. is a subsidiary of Apple Inc. (AAPL).

=A92008 FileMaker, Inc. All rights reserved. Bento and FileMaker are
trademarks of FileMaker, Inc., registered in the U.S. and other
countries. All other trademarks are the property of their respective
owners.

Re: FileMaker Ships Bento; $49

JamesStep@gmail.com wrote:
> The preview version has been out for a while, but today FileMaker
> announced that Bento is officially shipping. The price is $49 (or $99
> for a 5-license package). Here's the press release:
>
> SANTA CLARA, Calif., Jan. 8 /PRNewswire/
> FileMaker, Inc. today announced the immediate availability of Bento, a
> stylish, personal database created to help Mac users organize their
> lives (for more info and to buy Bento, go to http://www.filemaker.com/bento_ship_pr).
> Designed specifically for Mac OS X Leopard, Bento is an exceptionally
> easy way to organize contacts, calendars, projects, events, and more
> -- all in one place.
>
> With the intuitive iTunes-style interface in Bento, users can
> accomplish any of the following in minutes:
>
> -- Manage virtually unlimited contact details
> -- Coordinate events, parties, and fundraisers
> -- Track projects, assignments and deadlines
> -- Connect related information together to see more details
> -- Prioritize things that need to get done
> -- Catalog inventory, donations and items for sale
> -- Record hours worked and payments due
> -- Assign ratings to service providers and sellers
> -- Create libraries for music, movies and media
> -- Store files and photos related to projects and events
>
> Bento is affordably priced at $49 U.S., or $99 for a family pack of
> five licenses, and is available on the FileMaker Web store
> (store.filemaker.com), at Apple retail and web stores, and other
> places where software is sold.
>
> Singing Bento's praises
>
> Since the public preview of Bento began Nov. 13, more than 140,000
> copies have been downloaded. And users and the media have been
> praising Bento's breakthroughs:
>
> "I, for one, never thought I'd see a database able to achieve that
> level
> of simplicity. Yet another reason to consider a Mac?"
> NetworkWorld.com
>
> "FileMaker's new database has a friendly iWork look and feel. It's
> a
> database for the rest of us." MacLife
>
> "With Bento, I can organize everything, including projects,
> deadlines and
> tasks. My fellow designers are amazed at Bento's intuitiveness,
> ease-of-
> use, and ability to be changed on the fly. They are all clamoring
> for it,"
> says designer Gordon Wong.
>
> "As an optometrist, I also do a lot of presentations and projects.
> With
> Bento, I can organize presentations and track projects, to-dos,
> timelines
> and deadlines," reports Dr. John Warren. "I've been searching for
> a tool
> that works smoothly with Mail, iCal and Address Book -- and Bento
> delivers."
>
> System Requirements
>
> Bento requires Mac OS X v.10.5 Leopard on a Mac computer with an
> Intel, PowerPC G5 or PowerPC G4 (867MHz or faster) processor. A
> minimum of 512MB of RAM and 1GB of hard drive space is recommended. A
> CD drive is required for installation of boxed software.
>
> About FileMaker, Inc.
>
> FileMaker, Inc. develops award-winning database software. Its products
> include the legendary FileMaker Pro product line for Windows, Mac and
> the Web, and the new Bento personal database for Mac. Millions of
> customers, from individuals to large organizations, rely on FileMaker,
> Inc. software to manage, analyze and share information. FileMaker,
> Inc. is a subsidiary of Apple Inc. (AAPL).
>
> ©2008 FileMaker, Inc. All rights reserved. Bento and FileMaker are
> trademarks of FileMaker, Inc., registered in the U.S. and other
> countries. All other trademarks are the property of their respective
> owners.
>
Does anyone know why a version of Bento was not developed for Windows as
well? I really hate to see a company who places so much value on being
multi-platform do something like this.

Re: FileMaker Ships Bento; $49

Michael Myett wrote:

> Does anyone know why a version of Bento was not developed for Windows as
> well? I really hate to see a company who places so much value on being
> multi-platform do something like this.

Just a theory, but I suspect that Bento wasn't developed by FileMaker
Inc. at all.

I think it was developed by another team within Apple, possibly to be a
component of iLife, but they decided to sell it as a separate product.
Since it was a database, it made sense to sell it through their database
subsidiary, FileMaker Inc.

The main clue for this is the Bento has practically nothing in common
with FileMaker Pro. It was obviously developed independently. It even
resembles the appearance of applications in iWork, and shares behaviour
with Apple-written applications like iCal and Address Book (such as its
use of a centralised data store rather than a document-based model).

As to the question of why there isn't a Windows version: Bento is
primarily written in Cocoa, and that makes it difficult to port to other
platforms. FileMaker Inc would have to reimplement the entire user
interface of the application to get it to work on Windows. It might not
have been written in a way which facilitates this.

It may also be difficult to replicate some features of Bento on Windows.
On the Mac it has the ability to integrate well with Address Book and
iCal. On Windows, there are no equivalent universally available contact
and calendar applications: the closest match is Microsoft Outlook, which
assumes you have Microsoft Office (and not the entry level versions). I
think Outlook can already do a fair number of things that can be
achieved with Bento (e.g. adding custom fields to calendar entries), so
Bento would be less useful on Windows.

It may turn out that they eventually release a Windows version as well.
Other applications from Apple and its subsidiaries have started out as
Mac-only and turned up on Windows in later versions (e.g. FileMaker Pro,
ClariWorks/AppleWorks, iTunes, QuickTime and Safari).

--
David Empson
dempson@actrix.gen.nz

Re: FileMaker Ships Bento; $49

David Empson wrote:
> Michael Myett wrote:
>
>> Does anyone know why a version of Bento was not developed for Windows as
>> well? I really hate to see a company who places so much value on being
>> multi-platform do something like this.
>
> Just a theory, but I suspect that Bento wasn't developed by FileMaker
> Inc. at all.
>
> I think it was developed by another team within Apple, possibly to be a
> component of iLife, but they decided to sell it as a separate product.
> Since it was a database, it made sense to sell it through their database
> subsidiary, FileMaker Inc.
>
> The main clue for this is the Bento has practically nothing in common
> with FileMaker Pro. It was obviously developed independently. It even
> resembles the appearance of applications in iWork, and shares behaviour
> with Apple-written applications like iCal and Address Book (such as its
> use of a centralised data store rather than a document-based model).
>
> As to the question of why there isn't a Windows version: Bento is
> primarily written in Cocoa, and that makes it difficult to port to other
> platforms. FileMaker Inc would have to reimplement the entire user
> interface of the application to get it to work on Windows. It might not
> have been written in a way which facilitates this.
>
> It may also be difficult to replicate some features of Bento on Windows.
> On the Mac it has the ability to integrate well with Address Book and
> iCal. On Windows, there are no equivalent universally available contact
> and calendar applications: the closest match is Microsoft Outlook, which
> assumes you have Microsoft Office (and not the entry level versions). I
> think Outlook can already do a fair number of things that can be
> achieved with Bento (e.g. adding custom fields to calendar entries), so
> Bento would be less useful on Windows.
>
> It may turn out that they eventually release a Windows version as well.
> Other applications from Apple and its subsidiaries have started out as
> Mac-only and turned up on Windows in later versions (e.g. FileMaker Pro,
> ClariWorks/AppleWorks, iTunes, QuickTime and Safari).
>
Thats a good theory. Thanks!

Mike M

Re: FileMaker Ships Bento; $49

> Just a theory, but I suspect that Bento wasn't developed
> by FileMaker Inc. at all. I think it was developed by another
> team within Apple, possibly to be a component of iLife

Could be, although I'm not sure why Apple wouldn't have gone ahead and
included it in iLife, since Bento seems to be an excellent program.

My theory is that FileMaker just saw that money could be made with a
good Mac database program. I doubt if Apple funded the project, but
they were probably happy to see it happen and may have provided some
technical assistance.

James