FileMaker has announced it will discontinue Bento, its database client for Mac and iOS, on September 30. The company will increase focus on the FileMaker product line going forward, with the aim of creating “an even better experience for these customers.”
You’ll still be able to purchase Bento for Mac and iOS up until September 30, but on that date, the software will be pulled from the App Store, and the Mac App Store. However, development of these products has now ceased, so they will not see any future updates — though you can get technical support until July 30, 2014.
Bento, which was first introduced in 2008, was designed to make building databases super simple for the average user. It offered a whole hose of nifty tools which made creating and maintaining databases a breeze, such as the ability to import data from your address book and calendar.
Bento was regularly updated in the early days, with Bento 2 released in late 2008, Bento 3 released in 2009, and Bento 4 released in 2011 — all of which added lots of new features and improvements. Bento hasn’t received a major since Bento 4, however.
FileMaker is now encouraging Bento customers to replace the app with FileMaker Pro. If you use Bento on a Mac, there’s a handy migration tool that’ll help you transfer all of your data over. If you used Bento exclusively on an iOS device, you can get a free trial of the Mac app, sync your data to that, then use the migration tool to send it to FileMaker Pro.
The migration tool also allows you to export your database to Numbers or Excel if you’d prefer.
“We thank you for your support of Bento,” FileMaker said in an announcement on its support forum. “We know that many Bento customers will be disappointed.”
Source: FileMaker
Via: Macworld
