The heart of most businesses is clearly the database. Because of this, a brash street kid from Chicago is one of the wealthiest men in the world. Larry Ellison, the chief of Oracle, has spent more than 20 years pushing the limits of database technology.
Oracle's databases are heavy-duty applications that require a great deal of work to set up and run. Its greatest platform is, of course, Unix, not a platform ordinary people are ever likely to use.
On the personal computer level, there are a few small players. There is Microsoft's Access, MySQL and FileMaker Pro, once a part of Apple Computer and now an autonomous entity.
I first began using FileMaker Pro more than 10 years ago - before it added the 'Pro' to its name - and it is without question the easiest and most elegant database available for personal use and for small-to-medium office needs. This kind of database is normally called a workgroup database and FileMaker Pro stands alone. There are those who may prefer Microsoft's Access, but I have limited experience with it. I did have a quick look at it a few months ago, but I quickly gave up.
One of the most important lessons to be learned in the software world is that many people do not have extraordinary needs: they want something simple that works. When you keep things simple, you tend to stay more focused and there are fewer problems to have to deal with. One of the great criticisms of many software companies - not just Microsoft, either - is that they make things far too complex and 'fussy' .
FileMaker Pro 6 has kept to its original design and although it has added many new things over the years, it is just as easy to use. A great advantage one gets with FileMaker Pro is that the installation disk has both Windows and Mac versions on it, including Mac OS 9 as well as the new Mac OS X.