Database software

Can anyone recommend a decent database program for me that is easy to understand for someone not too good with computers? A friend of mine is running a small business which has developed a somewhat large customer base, and now requires a sensible way of catalouging this information. He's looked at some software that others has recommended such as the open source Vtiger, but he can't get his head around them. I have no experience with these programs myself so have no idea what to recommend. Anyone?

Unfortunately, my recommendation is a full price (and expensive) commercial product, but Microsoft Access is fair easy to get to grips with and quite feature rich too.
I suspect you'd be able to get an older version (like Excel 97) off evil-bay quite cheap.

www.openoffice.org
this is a freeware suit and has a database program OpenOffice.org Base

or try this standalone dbaseprogram http://www.brilliantdatabase.com/

I second open office. It is fully compatible with access database files, so if his existing database is exported for access, or even as excel spreadsheet data, it will be able to load them. And being free he won't lose any thing trying it.

Uh, his existing database would be post-it notes and a bad memory. I'll be really impressed if a program can import that quickly. :p

Openoffice is a great suggestion, should've thought about it. Thanks guys. :)

If it is more contact details then instead of a database maybe he should consider address book software? Outlook and the Open Office equivalent would be good for this.

How about Microsoft Works? I always found the database in that quite easy to use.