Published on the 14/12/2015 | Written by Beverley Head
Organisations seeking to develop mobile custom apps that support just 100 users are about the limit for the FileMaker platform…
So, although Sydney Rail may have used the FileMaker platform to develop a field service application for employees, FileMaker’s Asia Pacific managing director Joel Katz is frank that the platform “is probably not a good option” for enterprise scale customers such as IAG which might want to develop apps for tens of thousands of users.
It was an unusually candid revelation from the boss of an Apple subsidiary given that he feels constrained by his owners to the extent that he won’t say how many local employees FileMaker has, or how many local customers use the system. Such is the joy of being part of the opaque world that is Apple.
Katz also would not be drawn on the timing for the company’s plans to open its FileMaker Pro APIs to provide users with the opportunity “for deeper integration with third party systems and plug-ins.” But it appears that open API access is at least on the cards in 2016.
FileMaker is a veteran of the IT landscape, established back in the 1980s, and according to Katz, is now focused on selling its custom app platform to the small and medium enterprise market. While the platform can support a range of hardware, FileMaker is very much concentrated on the iOS arena, and providing access to the native hardware functions on Apple’s devices.
Katz said that the initial sales of the system tended to be made into the business side of companies rather than IT, especially in the smaller organisations which might not have an IT department in any case. It reflected, he said, the ‘democratisation of IT’, and that a business manager with a good understanding of spreadsheets, macros and business flows would be able to put together an app using a drag and drop approach “In days, not weeks or months.”
“Business users want to get started without several layers of approval,” to negotiate, which might be the case if the development were handed to the IT department according to Katz. “IT is historically pretty slow moving.”
He said that most users tended to use the platform to “fill in the gaps” around other software systems such as Xero or Salesforce. “If there’s an app there that fits your need then we would be the first to tell you to go and buy it. If you want a customized solution then FileMaker is a good place to start,” he said.
Katz, who also has responsibility for sales into China, seemed unfazed by the strong rise of local smartphone providers Xiaomi and Huawei which are delivering a strong challenge for Apple in that geography. He said he was “very bullish” about the prospects for FileMaker and Apple in China.
Gartner’s principal research analyst CK Lu however last week warned that Chinese communications companies were being more aggressive in their search for market share and were willing to sacrifice hardware revenues today to build a bigger base for tomorrow. He said this was making the smartphone segment more competitive and complex and that there would be; “further pressure on traditional smartphone vendors, who will be forced to innovate beyond hardware in order to stay in the game.”
Over to you FileMaker.
