I will never understand why Filemaker (Apple/Claris) essentially ignored the consumer market.
With FMP and FMP Advanced they already had the foundation to separate the products into consumer or pro editions. They could have left Filemaker as the consumer product with restricted features, no sharing, no debugging, less field options, limited calculations etc and kept Filemaker Pro for business level users.
A decent database has always been the missing piece of the Mac ‘Office (iWork)’ package. It’s just another great mystery of Apple I suppose.
About 20 years ago an FMP developer started what was meant to be a Filemaker alternative which had a similar GUI with an SQL backend. I think it was Java based and the default DB was Firebird. The name escapes me but I’m not sure if it’s still going. It’s killing me I can’t remember the name… I think it started with ‘C’.
FileMaker hasn’t, and still doesn’t, ignore the consumer market at all. However, the b2b market is extremely more profitable. It requires subscriptions for server stuff and for multiple seats. It also helps sell more Macs. However, I do think that companies like Walt Disney, whose thousands of employees span the globe, are a lot more profitable than me. I’m still on FMP 11.
The only reason why FileMaker survived, and the other Claris apps didn’t, is that even Steve Jobs couldn’t convince developers, including Microsoft, to develop and regularly update a sophisticated and easy to use Mac database. A database that could compete against Access.
FileMaker hasn’t, and still doesn’t, ignore the consumer market at all.
I guess we’ll have to agree to disagree. FMP rolled Filemaker Pro Advanced into Filemaker Pro along with its higher price and made it prohibitively more expensive for the consumer to purchase.
The low end consumer market can be very profitable and serves as a precursor to the higher levels of applications. This is why companies life Affinity are being successful with products like Photo, Designer and Publisher. They’re demonstrating that lower price and high turnover can be a profitable model.
Bento was an attempt to complete the ‘Office’ suite but was pretty ordinary and sold as a separate product. It’s a shame as I can recall using DB modules going back to Appleworks and Microsoft Works.
There’s some irony in Apple’s approach. They provide a free Music creation app with a higher version; a free Movie editing app with a higher version and previously did a higher version of their free Photo app. Then there’s the free Spreadsheet, Word Processor and their (extremely excellent) Presentation app.
I guess Apple believes people are more likely to do presentations or make songs than they are to track things in a database.
A relational database is a very specialized product, not a general interest one like Music, Numbers, Pages, Photos, etc. that Apple gives away to sell hardware. I’ve said this before…Apple doesn’t do cheap, and Claris is an Apple spinoff. There are plenty of less expensive alternatives, including free ones like My SQL. Profitably is a big reason why Apple doesn’t play in the same ballpark as Affinity, etc. FileMaker is cross platform if you need to share databases with Windows Filemaker users. And Claris does give FileMaker Go for free to owners of Android and iOS devices, and they also support third party apps. This is a plus for families and businesses.
When I do finally decide to replace my ancient MacBook Pro, I will give Affinity a try. I have just two FMP databases that I absolutely need. I will prefer to not have to shell out the big bucks for FileMaker.
I strongly disagree that Access was/is user friendly. Years ago I had to support and develop a couple of Access databases, and it was an abomination. A badly designed DBMS that provides just enough UI to allow non-technical people to construct databases that sort of work but have lots of issues. The only reason it is used in any meaningful numbers is because Access is ‘free’ for businesses and people who own MS Office (if you zero-rate your time ).
I for one am glad that Microsoft never brought Access to the Mac. It being bundled with Mac Office might have killed off development of some of the excellent alternatives we now have on the Mac (see this thread ).
Has in the history of the world there ever been a single case where somebody who had worked with FMP and then started using Access came to the conclusion “oh yeah, this is great too”?
Thirded. Access is a bit easier to use if you already know how to structure SQL queries but if not it is pretty obtuse…and from a UI point of view it is difficult to make nice forms and such.
I also agree that while a DBMS is more of a niche product than some other kinds of software…Apple and their wholly owned subsidiary messed up with then didn’t keep a free to reasonably priced database available. I tried and never really liked Bento much…but a less capable version of FileMaker for the masses with some reasonable included templates like household good inventory, media inventory, serial number and license and similar seems like a good fit for the ecosystem…particularly as making a less capable Filemaker wouldn’t seem to require all that much additional coding, just removal of higher end and relational DBMS features…although leaving relational as a background ‘how it works’ thing is probably just fine but don’t expose the relational stuff to the casual free/cheap product users to protect sales of the higher end product.
At the time, Steve Jobs’ hands were tied. Developers stopped developing and supporting Mac software like flies, and just about all of the rest of the world considered Apple to be on its late stage death throes. Software developers of all sizes and shapes were abandoning or ignoring Macs. He needed to position the Mac platform as an open state as much as he could. So Claris never developed a portfolio of new apps, or even developed a whole new suite, though it could easily have.
FileMaker, relatively speaking, has been quite successful and profitable. I think the ties to Apple are somewhat invisible but very strong. If they weren’t, they would have developed other paid software and maybe have gone public.
It’s still inexcusable. Nowadays, what’s preventing them for selling a non-Advanced no-Pro FileMaker that just does simple single-user databases without fancy debugging and super fancy scripting for $100 for a single license? No corporate user would switch to that, but tons of people who have old FM documents would probably prefer shelling out $100 over having to find and learn new tools, re-write their old front-ends, and then transfer over all their exported data.
Profit margins. Claris is not a nonprofit or not for profit organization. There are many, many, many bargain basement priced and free database applications out there, and quite a few good ones in the $50 range. Neither Apple or Claris is about cheap or second or third rate. They sell diamonds, not zircons.
That’s preposterous. This very thread here discusses people leaving FM altogether because there is no viable path forward for non-pro/non-corporate use. No sale means no profit at all.
I’m also seriously considering abandoning FileMaker now that I am retired. But there is a much more significant number of individual users who are not.
I realize this requires a change in perspective for many people here, but where I suspect a lot of casual database use has gone is the cloud. My late friend Oliver Habicht was quite fond of Zoho Creator, for instance, which he used to maintain a simple flat-file database of documents stored in folders.
And Airtable lets you build workflow apps on top of what is essentially a database—I looked into it briefly for a project that I didn’t end up moving forward with, but it certainly seems powerful.
But you do have to accept the fact that your data will be in the cloud and you won’t be able to examine the bits on your actual computer. I’m unperturbed by that, but many people aren’t.
I misspoke and apologize for using the phrase “user friendly”. In my opinion, Access, nor any other relational database I have used or explored, other than early Filemaker, has never been user friendly. I should have said something like “end user useable”, to imply that it had a GUI interface that did not require the user to be a computer programmer/software engineer to utilize it. By using the term ‘friendly’ I was trying to state that it had a GUI interface, like early Filemaker, that would allow the end user to develop a simple relational database without having to learn a programming language. That is what I meant by the term ‘user friendly’ in the context that it was used. As such I do not consider Base to be ‘user friendly’ either. But at least it does have a GUI interface that does not require a degree in Computer Science, or equivalent, to use it.
I use Filemaker (without Filemaker server), for invoicing and salaries and I find their pricing hard to fathom. Companies often create low cost or free products to provide on ramps for their more expensive services. Not Filemaker. I wonder if they are afraid of having to support new users because of how complex Filemaker has become.
Huh??? This doesn’t jibe with the discussion I have been participating in, even though I’m considering other less expensive options than FileMaker. And the only reason I’m considering leaving is because I don’t need as many databases as I did when I was working full time, and I will switch only if I can find a database app that works just about as well. And there will be plenty of younger people in, or about to, enter the workforce, have small or emerging businesses, are engaged in research, managing records, etc. and will benefit from jumping on the Filemaker bandwagon. And like me, I’ll bet there are legions of people who discovered the benefits of FileMaker from going to work in an organization that uses it, and realizes how well it will work for them personally. The trend for working remotely looks like it is segueing into the future. And there are plenty of students that are, and will be, using it as well. Apple and Claris are both companies that target, and appeal to multiple market segments.
Claris earned $72,000,000 last year, b2b and b2c purchasers most likely deliver the bulk of revenue. And I think there is continues to be a very viable a path for individual buyers as well as small businesses.
I think the opportunity for Claris would be a lower cost version that would serve as a way IN to the application, as well as potentially an exit route for someone who wants to keep an old DB running. I think I started with the app through a (probably illegal ) copy of Claris Works, and from there bought the cooking version of FM and later FM Advanced as my needs developed (Runtime!), and I grew more familiar with the software. I followed a similar path with several other software packages over the years and consider that a cheap entry route can make sound sense, especially if you can target students & universities.
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) copy of Claris Works, and from there bought the cooking version of FM and later FM Advanced as my needs developed (Runtime!), and I grew more familiar with the software. I followed a similar path with several other software packages over the years and consider that a cheap entry route can make sound sense, especially if you can target students & universities.