When discussing the variety of FileMaker products, John Mark Osborne, one of the leading industry experts with over 20 years of FileMaker experience states “there is no better database for rapid development than the FileMaker family of products.” In fact, FileMaker was recently recognized as a Leader in G2 Crowd’s Grid for rapid application development software. Don’t worry, FileMaker hasn’t totally forgotten about all those non-iPhone people out there, FileMaker’s WebDirect allows users to access FileMaker databases in a web browser. It is then hosted on FileMaker Cloud or a local FileMaker Server and accessed via FileMaker Pro on a Windows or Mac computer and via FileMaker Go for iPhone and iPad. All of the development takes place in FileMaker Pro or Pro Advanced on a Windows or Mac computer.

Simply put, FileMaker is software used to create custom applications specific to individual business needs. The majority of the development for FileMaker was moved in-house in 1998 and Apple officially changed the name from Claris to FileMaker, Inc. As the sales continued to skyrocket, Claris became the highest selling platform database for Apple. This new release allowed the user to have the same basic functions cross-platform along with the ever-improving user interface. In 1992 Claris released FileMaker for Mac and Windows. With FileMaker’s increasing popularity, there became a demand for a multi-platform database.

After purchasing Nutshell, Claris changed the application’s name to FileMaker in 1985 and it ran solely on Macintosh platform. This application was created by Nashoba Systems and was then purchased by Claris, an Apple subsidiary who purchased the rights to distribute Nutshell.

It was developed originally from a DOS application in the early 1980’s and went by the name Nutshell. What is FileMaker? And what does it have to do with Apple?įileMaker has been around for over 30 years under the guise of multiple other names. When the average person thinks of Apple products they typically think of their beloved iPhone they can’t live without, or maybe their shiny new Apple Watch that tells them to stand up when they’ve been sitting too long, but more than likely they are not thinking about FileMaker.

Apple file maker