Wednesday, January 25, 2012

Filemaker database and iPad development platform

Robert Scoble who blogs and video-blogs for his website building43.com is also producing a show for the rackspace.com website called "small teams big impact" which is in my opinion (just as) building43.com a great show to watch.



In this episode they talk to one of the companies from Apple which is not named apple however is named filemaker and who do provide small database solutions and a platform to create iPad applications without the need to program. Even though I do feel that you have a lot of limitations it can help small none-tech companies to start developing and running their own applications for (primary) internal use and/or external use.

Originally filemaker is developed as a cross-platform relational database where you can quickly develop applications in a drag and drop fashion. Even though some people might think filemaker is new to the market they are already up and running for some years and release version 1.0 in 1985 when they where part of Forethought Inc.

"A defining characteristic of FileMaker is that the database engine is integrated with the forms (screen, layouts, reports, etc.) used to access it. In this respect, it is closer in operation to desktop database systems such as Microsoft Access and FoxPro. In contrast, most large-scale relational database management systems (RDBMS) separate these tasks, concerning themselves primarily with organization, storage, and retrieval of the data, and providing little to no capability for user interface development. It should be noted, however, that the storage capacity of recent versions of FileMaker far exceeds most desktop database products, and indeed approaches that of many dedicated back-end systems."

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