I am dealing with a database with circa 3.5 million entries (all text, 7 fields, averaging 15 characters per field).

Problem one: This is RAM-based software, so for a larger database you had best have a *lot* of RAM. Panorama, despite boosting the memory usage to max 999MB, pukes out "not enough memory" and "i/o error" messages when trying to import text or even doing simple "find/replace all" commands. OK, I have been trying this with a Mac G4 with 1,25GB RAM, perhaps if i try it on a G5 with 8GB RAM it will not be an issue.

Filemaker, however slow it is, does function however as long as Autosave is on while doing 8 hours of "find/replace all." Filemaker's text import, despite reports to the contrary, is nearly as fast as Panorama's, but *only* if all the indexing is turned off.

Problem two: unlike Filemaker, no options for alphabetizing foreign, in this case German, characters. Treats ä, ö and ü like a, o, and u rather than treating it the same, according to German text standards, as ae, oe, and ue. I presume the same limitations apply to anybody else using a foreign language with different text characters, something which must limit Panorama users to English-speaking countries.

I have been waiting three days for a response from Provue's tech support on the foreign language issue, and despite the site claiming there were only 23 questions ahead of mine, have not yet received and answer. So still up in the air about the company's customer support.