When they do new licensing rules maybe later this year, this may be one of the projects the newer leaders did.
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Wow @steverichter, that is quite a story! I would not have imagined a store owner, with all they have to do, would pile FileMaker development on top of that. I see that you said you were able to get some hired help. But I guess you are going further than most, and it shows your dedication. I can only assume your FileMaker POS is a critical part of your operations.
So I would be inclined to say that your profile is a bit atypical today, but from what it looks like to me about the ongoing efforts from Claris to increase market share, it feels like we want more stories exactly like yours!
Everyone else, let's try and not stumble too much on the things that can take us off-topic (new or not so new management, other POS available to store owners, etc).
@steverichter Asked us all where we would place our chips to increase the likeliness of Claris getting more traction. I am very curious to see what people will put forward.
We have roughly 20 posts to date in this thread, yet no actual suggestions? I find this hard to believe! Surely, having Claris so close to our hearts, we all have suggestions we would like to see implemented to get more adoption of the platform. I say let's hear more of that!
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I remember that FMI was looking into making FM ACID-compliant. Inventory applications would greatly benefit from that.
I wonder why Apple chooses not to offer a trial version of FMP with each Mac they ship.
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@Torsten You’re right, but remember that’s just like yesterday for some of us. We’re still emotionally recovering from the neglect of the former senior management.
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I've been away from the forum for a while as I am busy using other tools since I made the decision to leave the FileMaker world last year. The licensing for small time developers and solution providers is too expensive and working out the licensing scheme too complicated - I moved to developing solutions for my clients in Xojo. This has been fantastic for me - I have been able to develop solutions and sell them knowing that the upfront sales value is all mine and the recurring annual maintenance is all mine too. Having a choice of backend databases is a major benefit to me - even in memory SQLite options are useful if needed.
I miss the ease of FileMaker to knock together a solution but the flexibility Xojo offers combined with a true object oriented programming language rather than a scripting engine offers me so many other benefits I don't regret the move.
Fix the pricing, the overly complicated licensing and I'd take another look.
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@Mark, I hear you well, I also know Xojo. Comparing the two:
- Xojo licensing is cheaper, but you need more work to create an app
- FileMaker eases app development by cutting the time to a finished app because they provide very high level functionalities
In short, you do the work yourself or pay FileMaker for doing (a good) part of the work.
It's a matter of personnel choice, both products have very interesting functionalities.
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Simple for Claris to grow…
- Bring back runtimes
- Lower cost
- Make it ACID
- Change the database engine to use SQL for CRUD operations, and let people, also, use-it with sql.
- Make a Text IDE mode.
- Allow calculation to also be written in javascript
- Drastically improve performance
- True data-separation
- Offer a spreadsheet mode, make it free, and / or cloud à la google sheet and use this as a trojan horse to then unlock the paid database stuff.
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I don't think those ideas may fly.
I would support:
- Allow seats licenses to scale better down, e.g. down to 1 user + server.
- Provide licensing for anonymous guest users.
- Performance improvements on the product, e.g. faster calculation engine.
- Make FMP free to use without server (and without peer to peer). So it can be pre-installed for schools, universities and Apple Stores and people can discover it. That may also help people who used runtimes. They could provide their clients a fully useable FMP and maybe they like to do more with it?
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@Vincent_L , the first part of your post did not meet any of the core values of the.fmsoup. It has been edited to remove the objectionable material.
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Regarding the first 4 suggestions, your hopes will not be fulfilled for sure.
Regarding the others:
This would be a major rewrite of FileMaker, taking years to do and breaking compatibility with the past. FileMaker is a relational database, not a SQL database. I don't expect that to change.
That will not happen, because the actual Script IDE has many advantages that usual IDEs do not have. Bringing a text IDE would need a complete rewrite of the scripts "compiler" - I know that scripts are not compiled, but they are processed as they are edited, again breaking with the past.
FileMaker is a different animal, with different tools. If you need SQL, then FileMaker i snot the right tool for you.
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That's why it won't grow !
This is your opinion, and it is as good as anyone else's opinion. FMI/Claris never pretended FileMaker was like other offers. It is quite different. And we see a lot of big companies going toward the low-code no-code platforms, for example Microsoft. As far as I understand, Microsoft targets large companies with a product that looks to be expensive, much more than FileMaker. Will it be a success, that reminds to see.
Sure FileMaker should have more success. IMO, this goes by having FileMaker courses in High school and college. This is a key factor.
This would be a major rewrite of FileMaker, taking years to do
Yes, then what. It's be worh it.
and breaking compatibility with the past.
There's no reason it would break compatibility at all, it would require a file format change, there will be a converter for it.
FileMaker is a relational database, not a SQL database. I don't expect that to change.
I see no opposition with that and having a SQL backend.
That will not happen, because the actual Script IDE has many advantages that usual IDEs do not have.
First I never said to replace the current IDE with a Text one, but to also let us write it in text, same syntax. The compiler would just have to take that text and transform it to the current form.
Also, I always thought that the current IDE had advantages other typing, but in fact I was wrong, I think this produces more errors and its slower. But I'm just saying to offer both.
By giving true SQL, and Text IDE for those who want it, you open the market to those fluent with that. For those, the current approach is a big no no.
Moreover, it would also benefits to advanced users.
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I think the biggest move to make Claris more popular would be a free tier like FM Pro given away for single user and only charging for seats with servers.
Make FMP free to download and use.
To not have all FMP buyers stop buying directly, Claris may first convert those into a small tier like one seat with server.
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Every FileMaker enthusiast has their own preferences regarding what the platform could offer, how it could be more appealing.
However, increasing market share is the vendor's business. Let's take care of the stuff we can influence, like the quality of our solutions.
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I believe that I filed in an idea (claris forum) a while back - "please sell FMS as a separate product und ship it in general including one client license. Allow single-step license-increase (1, 2, 3, 4, etc. clients)"
Better approach would be to have a free client, might be limited in some way - low code/no code asks by definition for something like this
We often are in somewhat strategic discussions with customers - "where are we going in the next 3/5/10 yrs"
Just to be nice, I do not write 'NO ONE' of the new members of that 'customer board' knows one single bit of FileMaker, therfore read it as follows: People of the 'customers-board' do not know much about FileMaker (-:
Therefore the discussion tends toward a standard MS environment - and FileMaker is always in question (often negative)
We got a specific 'university' (we do not name it that way, but it's the closest match) in the middle of the country - and back in the times as FMI had a local representant (not Switzerland-only, for the whole german-speaking region), I asked for help to make a series of presentations at that 'university'.
I asked for some 'good' discount for those students. The presentation would be from our 'basket', means no cost for FMI.
No chance.
We got one big project where the customer had to install a fancy BI-System. The whole company (BI) knew all about MS SQL, Oracle, etc. - but dealing with them as a FM dev' was difficult, really difficult...
To be clear: EVERY customer who is trying to find out where to go tends to 'default' MS products (MS SQL, Oracle, whatever), products that are not running on the FileMaker platform. If they stay on the FileMaker platform, then because of the job that we (FM developers, not just me!) are making over years - and a lot of those solutions from the other planets are costy, really costy..
Edit: Last week, MacGadget.de came up with an article telling the Mac-community that Claris/FileMaker is not able to come with a version of FileMaker for the Apple silicon chip...
Not so cool if You are in discussions with 'foreign' people..
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IMO texts like this one hurt a lot Claris. I wonder how often FileMaker is the subject of an article, and when it is so how often these articles are negative ? Did Claris reacted to MacGadget ?
Do you think Claris should demonstrate the actual version ? I am afraid it's not in Claris ADN to do so, and hope I am wrong.
Not AFAIK, but there is one response, could be from @MonkeybreadSoftware. Earlier, MacGadget was better informed - but AFAIK there is no longer a true representant in this region...