Thanks for your input here and I've replied by creating a new topic (share link and 'New Topic') as I believe your comments shouldn't be buried in my original post heading.
Again, I wholeheartedly support everything you've posted, the Data API has opened up so many opportunities.
The only thing I would add is within the Xojo, LiveCode comment
In many ways this applies to FileMaker as well, as we're constantly having to compromise thanks to the benefits of the amount of output we get for the amount put in, which has always been FileMaker's main strength. Hence, in a world where we already compromise, perhaps many could work within these constraints. If not, you've already addressed that.
Until then Android was a topic where FileMaker said no or never.
Now this changed to maybe. So they may be working on something.
(and I fear it may be a web client packaged as an installable app)
I’ve heard that too - but someone also mentioned that they drop (again) linux for fms. Although it was only for amazon, I was somehow puzzeled (if I got that right)
on the Hamburg Conference last month they asked about interest in fms on linux and only about 20% of the audience seemed interested, then they mentioned the possibility of providing vm-images with fms-on-linux preconfigured
vm-images could work as part of the AWS AMIs, but we’d want the ability to build on other providers infrastructures, we don’t like using the ‘big boys’ as their support is rubbish and in some cases not the fastest.
We’d also need to reconfigure after creating our own server and manage it totally independently to enable some of our more advanced systems and prevent them from breaking.
I’m sure we’ll have interesting times ahead, but at the moment have my head in Windows Server 2019 for the first time.