Gone are the days when new software came on a disc. We expect to go to the web and start working immediately in an app. So how does 35-year-old FileMaker Pro with over a million users fit that expectation? That was the question in August 2019 when FileMaker changed the company name to Claris. FileMaker has famously made work groups of 1 - hundred more efficient, centralizing data and using it to manage businesses. It can quickly be customized to each work group. FileMaker software was located mainly at the user locations but only a little on the web.
As Claris, their new main focus was WEB. FM 19 came in May 2020 with a more mature FileMaker Cloud service. Then COVID changed many things, but FileMaker stayed at version 19, though it continually updated over time. Claris recently emerged with new Claris-named web apps and a FileMaker upgraded to version 2023. Claris no longer support versions older than FileMaker 19. As usual, we don’t recommend upgrading to the latest version immediately. FileMaker 19 is compatible with FileMaker 2023, so version 19 is an excellent place to be. We often see upgrades happen because of new hardware or new security concerns. COVID caused many security upgrades; FileMaker 19 and 2023 meet those concerns. We will be talking will all our FileMaker customers in the coming months to ensure that each is at a FileMaker version that makes the most sense for their organization.
-Randy Seba
