[Philip Michaels]

Quote:

---

That's about half right--as of the most recent fiscal quarter, it had just under $14 billion cash on its Balance Sheet.

---

By my reading of this chart, it's $7.1 billion in cash and cash equivalents for the June 30 quarter. Is there something I'm reading incorrectly?

[Ronald_Schoedel]

From this page on FileMaker.com , we read: "FileMaker, Inc. is a subsidiary of Apple Inc."
As far as I know, this has been true for all of recent history (last ten, fifteen years or more).
Ronald Schoedel

[BrooklynNYC]

Jason stated that iWorks 08 contains 3 of the 4 apps that are included in MS Office - with Entourage being the fourth. Actually, what iWorks is missing is an app similar to Access - a database manager. There are many companies that need people who use Access.

[Ronald_Schoedel]

Quote:

---

Jason stated that iWorks 08 contains 3 of the 4 apps that are included in MS Office - with Entourage being the fourth. Actually, what iWorks is missing is an app similar to Access - a database manager. There are many companies that need people who use Access.

---

True, but MS Office:Mac has never included Access.

[BrooklynNYC]

Yes. But MS Office for Mac has never included Publisher either. Pages is now more like a combination of Word and Publisher - Publisher is more of a page layout program than Word.

[Neil_Anderson]

For casual users Apple's suite will be sweet. Pages opens Word doc files; Keynote opens Powerpoint files; and Numbers opens Excel files. Great for those instances when friends forward e-mail with Microsoft Office attachments.

[AggieChad]

You can perform a mail merge as long as you put the addresses into Address Book.

http://web.mac.com/w...tries/2007/8/16[u]PagesMail_Merge.html

[Charles_Martel]

I tested Numbers '08 with some pretty complex spreadsheets that I have developed over the years. The import function gave warning on several things that I considered trivial or cosmetic that I did not think were important, however, the warnings on pivot tables caused me concern.
NeoOffice doesn't do "Pivot Tables", but if you look up "pivot table" in their help files you will find the different name NeoOffice uses for the same functionality (I forget the name).
Numbers '08 does not even have the word "pivot" in the documentation, nor does it have a way of summarizing or selectively totaling data like a pivot table does. /forums/ubbthreads/images/graemlins/frown.gif

[Machound]

Quote:

---

Quote:

---

Based on the comments here, there is still a market for a flat file database application. Surely some enterprising developer must be reading these and working on a database app right now.

---

Panorama? <http://www.provue.com/>

---

Thanks for that link. I had forgotten about Panorama. Too bad Panorama 5 received a measly 3.5 mice rating back in March, 2005. I wonder if it improved any since then. Overall, FileMaker Pro 9 seems the more compelling product at the same price... as someone who has used neither program. I'll look closely at both programs when I'm ready to start my database project.

[shaneblyth]

Yep I got suckered in... It was the new file format support and VBA
oh well you live and learn it hasnt arrived yet, at least i get lifetime support
cunning bastards..

[Fuper]

FileMaker has compelling marketing, but this builds largely on their reputation for ease of use, and, for anything beyond a simple flat database, FileMaker hasn't been easy for casual users for at least a couple of years. Unfortunately, the lone user searching for recommendations likely still hears only how great FileMaker is, while the folk at FileMaker, Inc. have holed up in their ivory tower, ignoring all but IT professionals.
With releases of FileMaker up to version 6, I found building databases fun, and I recommended the app enthusiastically. However, with version 7 things changed; FMI introduced a new way of stringing relationships together that, while powerful, is extraordinarily confusing. They did not address this issue in version 8, and there's no indication that they have in version 9, either.
Having bought -- and even developed with -- version 7 and then 8 Advanced, I've essentially given up on the product. My own working database is still in 6. And I'm a guy who likes exploring this stuff; think of those who just need to get through it so they can get on with their jobs.
For a majority of the sort of users who used versions 6 and earlier to create simple relational databases, FileMaker is no longer easy to use, it's simply intimidating. FileMaker, Inc. have turned their back on the non-developers for whom their database was originally designed.
(In answer to the questions about whether FileMaker is part of Apple: As Claris, it was; Apple then spun it off, only to re-acquire it a few years later. So while they have always been close, they have not always resided under the same roof.)

[deasys]

Quote:

---

By my reading of this chart, it's $7.1 billion in cash and cash equivalents for the June 30 quarter. Is there something I'm reading incorrectly?

---

No, but you are misinterpreting it: It's customary to include short-term investments in the cash-equivalent amount. These totalled $6.6 billion for a cash-equivalent total of more than $13.7 billion.

[LeoO]

Quote:

---

Quote:

---

Last weeks addition of the spreadsheet application Numbers to iWork finally created a full-featured successor to the now officially-abandoned AppleWorks, which had gone untouched since 2004.

---

Not quite -- some of us are still looking for a simple database program, sort of a Filemaker Lite perhaps, to replace the basic database that was included in AppleWorks.
I used it at one point to organize some of my favorite crochet patterns -- Microsoft Works, IIRC, has/had a basic database that my dad-in-law was looking at to catalog his album collection (to see which ones he'd be able to find in CD and which ones I might have to transfer to CD for him).
Once we get that, and can import data fields into either Pages and/or Numbers, we're still short a true replacement for Appleworks...

---

And what about communications? If I can't log in to a local BBS with a dial-up modem as an INTEGRAL part of my productivity suite, then Apple has betrayed its long-loyal customers! And don't even talk about the abandonment of the drawing and painting components (and how VITAL it is that they be separate and distinct)!
Seriously, though, yes, a database component would be nice...