FileMaker Inc. on Monday announced the release of FileMaker Server 8. The database server software is available for download as a trial version; the full release costs US$999. Upgrades start at $299.
FileMaker Server 8 touts up to 89 percent better performance than FileMaker Server 7, thanks to an improved database engine. The new version also provides automatic consistency checking on all hosted files, better reliability, error capture, event logging and better diagnostics, support for new features of FileMaker Pro 8 and FileMaker Pro 8 Advanced; in fact, the new version of FileMaker Server is required to carry out the complex search patterns and calculation new to FileMaker Pro 8.
System requirements call for Mac OS X v10.3.9 or later, G4/500MHz, 256MB RAM, 1GB hard disk space. A G4/1GHz or faster is required for FileMaker Server 8 configurations of more than 50 clients.