Dear ebase Community Members,

We have fair news, and great news.

1st, the fair news, the port of ebasePro 2.20 to run under FileMaker Pro current versions, is taking longer and much more effort than we had planned on. It is a mature, robust database, so much work had to be done. While doing the work, we've taken a few steps to make updating this new version easier on a go forward basis.

2nd, the great news, is that we have the majority of the work done and it is running under FileMaker Pro 8.5, 9 and 10. We are in Alpha testing phase, which means it's not ready for production/real-life usage, but we are finding and fixing bugs and any remaining issues. AND we have additionally an update to ebase Classic, called 1.04 that will run in shipping versions of FileMaker Pro.

ebase.org has been hard at work on updates to two of it’s nonprofit software solutions offerings. A core group of the ebase Technical Advisory Committee has been meeting (tele-conferencing) weekly consistently over the last couple of years to advance these efforts. Just one of our programmers has logged in over 700 hours to date, on these efforts!

First up, is a port/partial re-write of ebasePro 2.20, one of the most mature, robust, powerful, flexible nonprofit donor and constituency managers out there, to be used with current versions of FileMaker Pro. ebasePro is built on FileMakerPro, so you can use it cross-platform mixed environment (Macs or PCs), as a standalone database or in a server-client environment with multiple users. Versions of ebasePro 2.80 are expected to be available as a free download. The runtime version has FileMakerPro embedded, so for single users there’s no additional cost. If you want to customize ebasePro 2.80, you’ll need a licensed copy of FileMaker 8.5, 9, or 10 - with testing yet to be done, it may work in FMP 7 and 8 as well. The server-client deploys will require you to have licensed versions of FMP server and FMP client (for each user), though the new ebasePro 2.80 has been tested to work in the FileMaker workgroup sharing mode as well.

Secondly, the simpler, though powerful for many nonprofits’ needs, ebaseClassic 1.03 is being updated to run in currently available versions of FileMakerPro. ebaseClassic 1.04 is currently ready for our testing schedule and is looking very good. A refresh of Classic’s appearance has been implemented to make it more contemporary.

ebase.org has moved it’s Community website hosting and is continually working on updating the website. Joining the Community membership gives you access to information, forums and other ebase users and helps to support these efforts - nonprofit software for nonprofits from a nonprofit software developer. ebase has the refinement of years of use and the input of hundreds of nonprofits that have contributed ideas and help in making it a great solution for nonprofits. ebasePro 2.80 and ebaseClassic 1.04 are both expected to be available towards the end of 2009. Please visit our website at www.ebase.org for news, updates and downloads when available.

Yours in ebase - the ebase Board of Directors and the ebase TAC (Technical Advisory Committee).