Exciting new developments at Claris

Claris has announced a series of exciting updates to FileMaker, demonstrating its commitment to the future of this fantastic platform. This is great news. 

Let’s have a look at the developments and what they mean. 

What's new

• Read the latest news on Claris FileMaker 2023 platform.
• New versions of FileMaker are on the way, and we are promised more frequent releases.
• These will include bug fixes and performance improvements, while maintaining backwards compatibility with older versions.
• Maximum user numbers increase to 1000.
• A new product is being launched in the autumn called Claris Studio. This will combine the existing Claris Connect – which helps integrate external features such as DocuSign or Xero with FileMaker and with each other – with a new set of tools for building public-facing data capture web forms.
• The name FileMaker is changing to the Claris platform (or just ‘Claris’). The Claris platform will include Claris Pro, Claris Go and Claris Server, with Claris Studio (incorporating Claris Connect).
• A new ‘freemium’ version of Claris Pro will become available. This means a single user can use the full product without limit for ever. As soon as you deploy to multiple users you need to pay a licence.

Our take on the changes

FileMaker is and remains a great platform to solve problems with. We are delighted that Claris has renewed and strengthened its commitment to the FileMaker product line. 

The platform has been an excellent tool for 30 years (some of the systems we improve and support are older than some of our developers who now work on them!) and clearly it needs to be continuously developed to take advantage of technological change. It’s good to know that this process is continuing and even accelerating. 
 
The improvements to performance and speed take the product in the right direction. We are looking forward to seeing how these changes play out, along with other developments, in the releases of FileMaker 19.5 and FileMaker 19.6 (it seems that anyone wanting FileMaker 20 will have to wait a bit longer).

Since writing this article Claris has announced that there won’t be a FileMaker 20 and instead are changing the naming convention, so it is called Claris FileMaker 2023. See more in our latest article here.

We love that the product will be certified for use with 1000 users at once. We work with some of the larger organisations using FileMaker and this is great news for them as it provides reassurance that this is the right tool as they grow. 

We also love that for the product is going to be free for solo users, widening the participation and general uptake of the platform.
 
Claris Studio should be an exciting new way for non-web developers to do integrations with other things, and will put FileMaker systems in the hands of web users – although this is something our web developers have been doing powerfully for a while.
 
As for the name change, we like it. FileMaker has something of a dated ring to it and the product has always done far more than make files. However, the new name will take a lot of getting used to for die-hard fans like us. Calling the platform FileMaker will be a hard habit to break after 35 years. 

Clearly the technology is great but our primary focus is always on our clients and their business challenges. Claris FileMaker is a marvel of software engineering but the real value is won or lost in how this magnificent and versatile tool is used.