Apple Ships Bento Database For Mac OS X LeopardApple Ships Bento Database For Mac OS X Leopard

Apple's Filemaker unit said Tuesday that a final version of its widely anticipated Bento database for the Leopard operating system is now available for purchase.

Billed as "the database for the rest of us," Bento is designed to give Apple Leopard users an easy way to create, store, and organize contact lists, calendars, project schedules, and other organizational aids.

Bento reflects the same look and feel as Apple's iTunes software, so its use should be fairly intuitive for most iPod and Mac users, the company claims.

Users can choose from among 20 templates that feature pre-designed themes and styles for work, school, or business projects.

The software is priced at $49 for a single-use copy or $99 for a five-pack. It's available as a download at the Filemaker Web site and can also be purchased at Apple stores and other retail software outlets.

Early reviews and user interest indicate that Bento could be a hit for Apple's Filemaker unit, which is known mostly for its venerable Filemaker Pro database. To date, more than 140,000 users have downloaded a pre-release version. Bento is named after a type of Japanese boxed lunch in which portions of meat, fish, rice, and vegetables are grouped into tidy compartments.

Bento is the latest example of how operating system manufacturers like Apple are stepping up efforts to deliver tightly integrated search and organization tools in an effort to produce a simplified computing environment.

Bento, for instance, is built to automatically pull in information from other Leopard tools and applications, including the iCal calendar, Address Book, and iCal Tasks list. Users can also export some data to their iPhones or import information from Microsoft Excel or any other database program that supports Comma Separated Values, or CSV -- a file format for storing tabular data.

Not to be left behind, Microsoft's new Windows Vista OS also includes a number of enhanced organization and search tools, including Instant Search -- which lets users perform a keyword search across all the files on their desktops.

Despite early buzz around Bento, its commercial success isn't guaranteed. It's competing against a number of new free, or low-cost, database products that have recently hit the market -- including Google's new online Spreadsheets database.

As with most of its offerings, however, Apple is confident that users will be willing to pay more for a product that offers aesthetic charm in addition to functionality -- an approach that has paid off with smash hits like the iPhone and iPod.

The question is whether Bento will join those ranks.