The runtime still won't connect to anything! You've got Adobe coming out with the AIR runtime, MS is working on theirs, and then you have FM who has had the ability for years and could have put a serious thumping on the above two but won't because they want to try to make everyone pay $300!! Really upsets me because FMP is such a nice program and easy to use but it's like getting all dressed up with no place to go! Oh yeah, I could pay $1600 and serve the data up to a whole 250 people....Or I could pay nothing (MYSQL) and serve the data up to as many people as my hardware will handle. There's a tough choice.

I'm sorry for the rant, I know there are people here who are excited about the new release. Just had to get that off my chest.

Thanks

Greg

It's a matter of Profits.

FileMaker stopped this ability with the release of v4, because they realized that they were missing out on a lot of profits.

I don't envision them every changing back to those days. With every release, several developers moan about this, but it is a cash cow for FileMaker Inc. the way it is.

Lee

Edited July 11, 200718 yr by Guest

You know I spend more time with FMP and MAC than with my family, and I love both, but I just can't get my self excited about FMP 9 !!

FM staff What the heck have you done ?

where is controlled auto-log off ?

Where is special container to handle pic and text and RTF ?

Where is graphical tools in browse mode ?

Where is secure E-mail messaging ?

Where is enhanced file management ?

Where is any attention to direct scanner use in FMP ?

Where is any improvement in import or export ?

Where is any improvement in Web Viewer ?

Where is script triggor or heck any new exciting changes in scripting ?

Yes yes I know the scripts are grouped and icons are changed, but this is GUI improvement and should have been here 3-4 years ago ! Yes we can access SQL data, BFD ! if I was so intrested in that I would have been using "MySQL" !

Come on guys, you need to work on what matters !

As far as I can tell you are not moving at any measurable speed !

There is a considerable difference between how fast Apple is moving, and how fast FMP is ?

Apple needs to suck FM back under its umberlla and fix it up !

Guys, everyone wants to make money, but please at least give us something to work with !

I was so excited that any day now, we will be seeing FMP 9 , heee haaaaa for nooooooothing !

The reason we still are committed to FMP is that you had delivered in the past, but not this time ! Need to catch up.

"Give us something exciting not reforbished crap !"

Truely I am utterly disappointed. Now another year before wooo

version 10 :

Edited July 11, 200718 yr by Guest

"Come on guys, you need to work on what matters ! As far as I can tell you are not moving at any measurable speed !"

You're looking in the wrong direction.

Come on guys, you need to work on what matters !

To whom??? It's ridiculous to expect a one size fits all. This is particular bad if you expect it to adapt to a different metaphor such as behaviours found in Xcode, Runtime Revolution, Realbasic, spreadsheet or wordprocessing tools.

You must admit filemaker it's right to carve it's own niche, and only once and a while be the right tool to the task at hand, while universal tools tend to cut the corners, some specialized tools otherwise would be right on.

Let's not suggest that Filemaker adapt to "just because you are holding the hammer, doesn't mean everything is a nail."

BTW wouldn't I be flashing learning disabilities, neither in hints nor in mourning ...if I suffered from it!

--sd

"BTW wouldn't I be flashing learning disabilities, neither in hints nor in mourning ...if I suffered from it!"

Søren, you have such a way with words. ;)

The bottom line is when a company decides to stay with a product or upgrade to a newer version, one needs to show what, how and if there will be enough justification to do that and in the case of version 9 I can not. In developers world also, there is really not much offered in version 9 for people to run and spend money on upgrades !

Again I am the #1 supporter of Apple/FMP but I have reached my limit of what I can achieve with FMP already.

There was a wish list of 100's of suggested changes that was made by FMP users linked to this Forum, I wounder how many of those wishes came true !

And about "looking the wrong direction", if a strong supporter of FMP is feeling this way, it is a sad day no matter which way you are looking !

Edited July 11, 200718 yr by Guest

This upgade, have perhaps too little to offer a mom-and-pop-shop, but that strategy was actually left ages ago ...you might not have noticed it but i came with Goupils arrival in 1997 where the plunge was taken to reach "workgroups in Fortune 100 companies" ...or rather the focus changed away from the kichen sink approach with the growth the company expireinced with this new territory.

if a strong supporter of FMP is feeling this way

Exchange the FMP with "young women" when getting balled, and not being the obvious match as first lover, any more!

--sd

Some of those requests would be equally needed in small or large businesses. File management for example. What I want is a simple cross-platform "list folder" command. It can't be hard to do. It would make FileMaker a serious document management tool.

here was a wish list of 100's of suggested changes that was made by FMP users linked to this Forum,

How did this information get communicated to FMI?

Steven

I don't know how the list was communicated to FM by the forum, but I have personally gone to FMP web site and given them suggestions many times.

Of course they can not make everyone happy but small things like "Script trigger" or file and folder management or scanner support are elementry things that are expected. Ya Ya one can use plug ins and a patch here and there but ....

My wish is the ultimate success of FM by all means but I have to go and defend it in front of a committe members with other tools on hand.

So this is not all fun all the time. In order for some company like mine to continue using FM, I have to have something to show for.

Maybe I am just over reacting, or maybe I am just pissed off but we have to increase our expectation to keep up with other competitors in the market !

They are well aware of the eveny trigger (not just scripts) issue. They chose, for whatever reason, to implement something else in the current version. There are always x amt of resources and 3x amount of requests. No release ever goes ut without something having been cut.

Steven

Well, my only concern is that they seem to have devoted a large amount of their limited resources to a feature that wasn't really demanded -- i.e. layout object resizing.

Oh well, their issue I suppose. It's not like I"m going to be upgrading my current clients to 9 with the current feature set anyway.

Re the original post, the lack of network ability for the runtime has always been an issue for me as a developer. So for a new project, and if a client has a limited budget (when don't they?), I use Access, it's still more powerful anyway, it's just not as clever as FileMaker.

The lack of networking developer "bound solutions" also, in my opinion stops the growth of FileMaker in corporate environments. Everyone has MS Office installed (usual Pro in UK corporates), so to roll out a front-end, back-end split Access system doesn't require investment in software only development. For FileMaker it's usually x amount of users and a server, and it's new investment (I admit that for powerful systems you'd need SQL Server perhaps with an Access front end, but smaller systems are loosing out.).

It's not like I"m going to be upgrading my current clients to 9 with the current feature set anyway.

This is where I was when 7 released. Didn't really see a huge advantage to upgrading all the clients here(25+). Then 8 released and it looked really good so we upgraded to 8.5 6 months ago and purchased the Maintanence when we upgraded.

About the non added features. It almost seems as if they do not add certain features so they do not step on the companies feet that make Plug-Ins.

Michael

I think that is more of a business model issue than a limitation issue. If stand alone could be networked, then everyone would just buy one copy of advanced, create a stand alone and not buy copies of Pro, one would think.

that is how I felt about the 8.5 release. I would gladly give up my webviewer for the ability to display the second value only (not the primary value) on a field with a value list when a drop down list is used.

But I will never give up my List () function! lol.

Well them not wanting to step on the plugin developers feet is all great. But here's my take on this...

FileMaker goes for 430 a pop at retail price in Aus. Now, we are really paying a crap load more than america for each license - our current exchange rate is 0.86c, so we are getting ripped off by about

$299 * 1/.86 = 347 that we should be paying... that's a 20% rip off.. I mean honestly.

Anyway, my point is, we're already paying a crap load for the clients, why is that we should then fork out hundreds of dollars more for functions which should probably reasonably be incorporated, and would likely have cost them far less effort than the issues they seem to have had with incorporating dynamic layout resizing.

Anywho, end rant.

Pardon me, it goes for 453 + 10% gst here.

Oh and last of all, FileMaker Pro 9 should be green!! Blue is boring - plus its not really consistent...

I mean all the other versions had different colors, and its not like it relates to the .fp7 file format given that fm7 was yellow... maybe they're secretly agreeing with us that it's really exactly the same program.

They are charging you guys more because your English version is different from ours. :(

Lol, funny :(

¡¡¡ǝɹıɥ oʇ ǝʌɐɥ ʎǝɥʇ sɹǝʇɐlsuɐɹʇ uʍop ǝpısdn ǝɥʇ llɐ sʇı

This is my first post here and I am not trying to start a war, but what you are saying makes very little sense for a 2007-2008 world.

1.) Why wasn't there at least a thin client when version 7 rolled out? Since version six what we have been lead to believe is they are focused much more-so on inter-office workgroups than they are the small development company. You cannot possibly tell me that if they were to release a thin client even in the price range of $100.00 a pop that there would not be a huge demand for it from corporate environments. I personally know of a rather small organization (in the scope of what is large and small) that would purchase 250 licenses for a thin client in a heart-beat. To me not having a thin-client now that we are at version nine boils down to them being just a bit greedy on what they expect from business consumers and corporations. They do not now, or have they ever had an efficient pricing model for their so-called target base, which is inter-office corporate.

2.) When I was a whole heck of a lot younger I was with a company that developed FileMaker solutions for transmission shops back then the price to get in with the solution itself was 3-6k not counting the required FileMaker licenses. Eventually this company was bought out by AAMCO and now their shops are paying even more of a premium to use the latest version of this solution under the umbrella of one of the largest national transmission shops in the United States. To get to my point (and still being very close with my former boss now department head over there) they would gladly pay FileMaker 100k to get a networkable runtime (which is nothing more than a thin client...) for 1,000 seats.

So, from the perspective of being your small time developer - no they would never make any money, but any huge corporate environment that was considering the system... come on now! Sorry, I hate to say it because I love FileMaker and I love Apple, but even though they govern themselves they still have the Jobs pricing syndrome, which is a very high premium for a nice package - but not much room to move at all if you want a cheaper model. (It doesn't exit)

In today's day and age you cannot be the BMW of the RDBMS world and continue to grow because the free alternatives out there are not like they were with a 1998 pricing model. Will it effect them today, no. Will it effect them tomorrow? I believe so.

All thats from someone who has been using the software for over a decade and continues to develop in it every day!

It's a matter of Profits.

FileMaker stopped this ability with the release of v4, because they realized that they were missing out on a lot of profits.

I don't envision them every changing back to those days. With every release, several developers moan about this, but it is a cash cow for FileMaker Inc. the way it is.

Lee

Edited July 11, 200718 yr by Guest

There will be no war. Although I have been using FileMaker since 1990, and seriously developing in it since 1994, I am only a user like you, and not employee of FMI.

I don't disagree with you on about a thin client, but I do worry how FMI will adjust their prices to cover their loss of revenue. Others have also suggested this might be a good alternative in the past.

However, I don't know if anyone has suggested it to FMI. If you want change, you need to go to the people who can make the change, i.e. FMI's feedback site. You will find the link in our Wants and Wishes Topic.

BTW, I have suggested several change over the years. Some never to be heard back from, and others that are just now starting to show up in FileMaker. For instance, back in 1995, or 96 I asked that the add a Function to Color Text, not to unlike what we saw introduced in v7., and you can see how long that took. BTW, I wasn't the only one asking for this Function. After I suggested it, I found out that many of the folks on the lists had also requested it.

Anyway, good ideas are worth fighting for, so keep slugging away.

Lee

I think that is more of a business model issue than a limitation issue. If stand alone could be networked, then everyone would just buy one copy of advanced, create a stand alone and not buy copies of Pro, one would think.

I guess that's the key, they have a small market share, so no doubt it's about protecting profits.

It doesn't happen with developer editions of Access, which allow you to create an MDB/MDE and install it with a runtime only version of Access for end users without an Access install. But then MS have a massive market share, but they equally loose sales when network Access runtime systems are deployed...

.. FileMaker does allow installation of runtime only versions of FileMaker for end users without FileMaker...

Its the Network integration where you can't use runtimes that poses the issue.

Yeah I know, I have an image runtime system running at over 200 separate end-users and sites using standalone runtime

The network facilities I was referring to and I should have clarified (although I believe I did in the earlier posts) that the Access runtime has full networking support, whereas, as we all know, the FMP one doesn't.

Well i think it was this statement that confused me: But then MS have a massive market share, but they equally loose sales when network Access runtime systems are deployed...

Does ESS work in a runtime? If so, that could send you part way toward having a thin client.

If I told the girls in the front office that thier UPS Truck Tracking button didn't work anymore they would be quite mad at me.....lol

I think it was Vaughn who actually first picked this up, but no unfortunately it doesn't.

Regarding corporations needing networked runtime because of the cost of full versions. No they don't - they buy huge licenses and discounts are built in - it's not like they are paying $300 per seat. The fact that each network seat gets a full copy is probably a bonus to them. FM has to stay in business and pay their developers - cheap network runtimes aren't going to happen. This should have been obvious years ago.

Well, they existed years ago, so apparently they did happen...

But my only concern is that however much the client pays is how much lower my hourly rate has to be.

Well, if you deliver the whole product to them using a free database server and code the whole thing in perl or php or ruby etc., then you won't have to pay any license fees and your hourly rate can be much higher... unless of course the project would take you three times longer to finish (forgetting about the learning curve part) so your hourly rate would have to come right back down to keep the total project cost the same.

Everything's a trade off.

Regarding corporations needing networked runtime because of the cost of full versions. No they don't - they buy huge licenses and discounts are built in - it's not like they are paying $300 per seat.

Ya, I think we only pay somewhere around $40-$50 a seat for annual maintenance. Although that's pretty low compared to the full upgrade pricing, it still adds up when you're talking a couple hundred seats. But in the big picture of the annual IT budget, it's not a big deal.

Well, if you deliver the whole product to them using a free database server and code the whole thing in perl or php or ruby etc., then you won't have to pay any license fees and your hourly rate can be much higher... unless of course the project would take you three times longer to finish (forgetting about the learning curve part) so your hourly rate would have to come right back down to keep the total project cost the same.

Yeah, I've been learning PHP for the past few months and it's really quite straight forward. Well, the hourly rate isn't an issue because they are really paying for not having to pay for FM Licenses. Here's your issue though, what is the point of FM at all in that case? Why not just use MySQL or PostgreSQL?

Wow! I was expecting to get blasted for ranting about a new release!

I too started with FMP in 1990 (what version was it back then 1.x - 2.0???)? Having had that history I can make this point - FM has their niche market - it is the same niche market they went after in 1990. But the program certainly isn't the same is it? The simple fact that there is a developer community such as this should tell them something. The program has evolved into something much more powerful than the hobbiest/home user program (that all the "real" database guys laughed at) that it was then. But their business model hasn't changed a bit. Hello McFly?

With regards to to profits this is one of the things that upsets me so much. Do you think that Adobe is making their AIR runtime free so they can lose money?: Even their development program Flex 2 that was pretty expensive is going open source with Flex 3. So my point in making the runtime able to connect to data sources is ALL about profits. The benefits of this is a whole additional conversion but it's mostly useless as this feature doesn't fit in their 1990 business model.

Oh, and one release per year? Compared to open sources 5 or 6+ per year???

Regarding FM's present "niche" have you seen Coghead? (www.coghead.com) Or how about www.awareim.com (very powerful - relational, incoming emails, etc. and easy to use and cheaper than FMP - $1500 gets you the server and all the runtimes you want)? They still don't have that FMP GUI that I like so well though!

Greg

Genx,

Use the Reply button, not the Quick Reply.

Lee

What you are saying is not the feeling of every corporation who has FileMaker present in their install-base or is thinking about adding it, sorry. You cannot look at a massive multi-national who may be considering FileMaker for lets say a specific function of their human resources department and doesn't need Joe, Sally, Peter and the other 500 people in their department to have access to creating reports and layouts. Please don't tell me, "Oh well eat the cost of the full license at the volume discount and lock them out privilege wise." That's a technical response not an efficient/cost effective business response. If the number of licenses dictates you're going to be paying $50.00 a client for a full copy of 9 then it would mean you would be paying even less if there was a thin client... would it not? A thin client is absolutely nothing more than a networkable runtime that isn't free and produced with a copy of Advanced.

There is absolutely more than enough demand for such a thin client especially now that FileMaker is an easy in to SQL data-sources. Just off the shelf without a volume discount it's worth $100.00 just to have a thin client option to connect your clients, staff etc to that MySQL data in a beautified way and if they would get their act together they could make a fortune lol! Putting together a MySQL database is the easy part. Coding the whole front-end in a desktop technology like C# or a web-based technology like PHP is where the time and effort come into play and FileMaker could take a big chunk out of that market.

Regarding corporations needing networked runtime because of the cost of full versions. No they don't - they buy huge licenses and discounts are built in - it's not like they are paying $300 per seat. The fact that each network seat gets a full copy is probably a bonus to them. FM has to stay in business and pay their developers - cheap network runtimes aren't going to happen. This should have been obvious years ago.

Joe, Sally, Peter and the other 500 people in their department to have access to creating reports and layouts

Bad example...

1) I doubt a multi-national would consider FileMaker when more reliable technologies are available for one-off fess.

2) FileMaker only supports 250 users anyway.

But I agree with you nonetheless on the second paragraph.

Wow, are you not aware of the very, very large organizations that use FM for certain needs on a daily basis? Don't make it seem like the product never leaves the shores of medium-sized and small business to venture off into the mega corporate world my friend because you would be very mistaken.

Bad example...

1) I doubt a multi-national would consider FileMaker when more reliable technologies are available for one-off fess.

2) FileMaker only supports 250 users anyway.

But I agree with you nonetheless on the second paragraph.

Meh, If I was a very very large corporation I think I wouldn't risk my data with FM.

What!

Maybe you should consider what you say before you say it.

What the hell is the difference between a small business data, and a multinational corporation? Answer?Nothing. Maybe a few more zeros, but the need to protect, report, etc. remains identical.

Take a look at the Customers that are listed on FileMaker's site.

Lee

Believe it or not Apple actually uses their own product?! We built a php site to monitor their proficiency with different IT/programming skills and the back end was a FileMaker database believe it or not.

With clients I have on Access and FileMaker (and some are large organisations), deploying a limited runtime (with network features) wouldn't be an issue for an end user, none of my end users would want to use development features (and in case my solutions are locked down, I certainly would never permit any end user to toy with the code), so the advantage of having the full version to them is a moot point. It would only be an advantage to an end user, as it'd reduce cost from their point of view.

The lack of this feature definitely has led to managers in companies I work with going the Microsoft route because it's already "there".

As for size of companies and data, I personally have a wide range of clients from small business to large corporates. My largest FileMaker based system is for a large government based client, using a complex and complete bespoke MIS system that I've developed for many years in FileMaker (currently on v8.5), this particular system runs over 3 sites (4 if you count where the server resides) running FM Server and clients over Citrix. It has a many concurrent heavy users, hundreds of thousands of records pass through it a year in numerous tables - it is the most stable system, in fact never ever crashed nor lost any data. So I completely disagree that large companies wouldn't trust their data to it - as a consultant it is your job to education your client and offer the best solution. My solution has proved much more stable than other systems they have centralised data in through large DB providers, I assume I needn't mention names!

I personally wish FM had a wider corporate following.

Okay, I've lost my post twice now so really quick summary.

I apologize for my quick handed dismissal of FileMaker, but I'd like to note a few things.

1) I don't see FedEx up there

2) I don't see United Airlines using FileMaker for their booking system.

3) I think attention to detail here is important, am I the only one noticing the number 500? I believe that's 250 * 2 (then again my maths isn't great)

FileMaker in 500 license environment = not financially smart.

2 FileMaker Servers (at least)

SynkDek

Development Costs

FileMaker Pro Client Cost * 500

FileMaker Pro Yearly Maintenance * 500

Further development costs to reach required legislative standards

Here's where I may see it as wise:

You have an environment where you know you wont exceed 250 FileMaker users at any time, that's it. Why push FileMaker past boundaries which FileMaker Inc itself instates... just because we can...?

Edited July 13, 200718 yr by Guest

Would I trust a FMP "backend" for a large deployment? No way. Would I trust a FMP "frontend" for a large deployment? Definitely. I think the new feature of being able to connect to the big databases could really change the course for FM. Can you name another frontend for the big databases that is easy to use and doesn't require coding? I don't know of one.

But once again if you can't connect to it a pretty front end doesn't do you much good. Another thought here is that FM could strip even more functionality out of the runtime - all it needs to do is add/edit/delete and connect to the data.

Greg

Well,

With the release of FM 9 it confirms my first though when I was hired. Unfortunately, I will migrate our databases to SQL Server. For many reasons. The first reason is limited freedom of FM development, the second reason is the cost which is prohibitive and many more.

I started to like FM, but with this release, I see that there isn't much to do with this new release...

Nick

1.) United Airlines is using FileMaker in their maintenance and engineering.

2.) There are a lot of companies I think you haven't even bothered to read about that are using FM in some form or the other and are a heck of a lot bigger than FedEX.

3.) No offense, but I don't think you have come to the point in your life yet or in business where you actually know what's expensive and what isn't when you make comments like these. When you start working with getting an Oracle system with a grid backbone online, plus hiring DBA(s) to maintain it then you can start to talk about what's pricey.

The examples you are giving are trying to go beyond what you would be using FileMaker for so forgive me for saying they don't make much sense at all. FileMaker in large corporations is based upon departmental need more often than not.

This 250 figure you keep pulling out is meaningless. That's concurrent use... yeah I guess it would mean something if the server couldn't drop idle connections, but I have personally been in situations before where the install-base was upwards of 500 and very rarely were there complaints about being locked out because connections limits had been reached. But, once again what you are saying by bringing up the example of an airline's booking system doesn't make much sense anyway because FM wasn't designed to meet that kind of a data-load to begin with!

Your legislative arguments make no sense at all to me. As far as law is concerned around most of the globe it's how the data is stored and maintained not the amount of data that is stored to begin with. If you're running with Oracle and you create a FUBAR situation where you have pertinent data loss you're in just as much trouble as if you were with FileMaker.

Your 500 * for maintenance makes very little sense. If you have that big of an install-base you sign a stinking support contract for a set fee or you don't belong in business to begin with!

All of this financial stuff you are talking about is nonsense, sorry man. You must not really have much of a clue as what goes into judging the cost effectiveness for technical expidentures - it involves a lot more planning than how many people will be using a given system.

Sorry if I sound harsh, but I really am totally baffled by some of your comments......

Okay, I've lost my post twice now so really quick summary.

I apologize for my quick handed dismissal of FileMaker, but I'd like to note a few things.

1) I don't see FedEx up there

2) I don't see United Airlines using FileMaker for their booking system.

3) I think attention to detail here is important, am I the only one noticing the number 500? I believe that's 250 * 2 (then again my maths isn't great)

FileMaker in 500 license environment = not financially smart.

2 FileMaker Servers (at least)

SynkDek

Development Costs

FileMaker Pro Client Cost * 500

FileMaker Pro Yearly Maintenance * 500

Further development costs to reach required legislative standards

Here's where I may see it as wise:

You have an environment where you know you wont exceed 250 FileMaker users at any time, that's it. Why push FileMaker past boundaries which FileMaker Inc itself instates... just because we can...?