For example, FileMaker can be used to manage the inventory of a small business or automate functions like payroll, Claris evangelist Andy LeCates said.Ĭlaris software works across various platforms, including Microsoft Windows, but the Filemaker app for iPhones and iPads is a strength for the company, and it has over 4 million downloads, Freitag said.Ĭlaris is also launching a second enterprise product over the next year, Claris Connect, which is based on its recent acquisition of an enterprise start-up called Stamplay and led by its founder Giuliano Iacobelli. It competes with similar enterprise products from Microsoft and Oracle. "We thought it was really important to acknowledge our legacy, and hold on to our 50,000 current customers," Freitag said.įreitag is relatively new in the top role, taking over the CEO position earlier this year from Dominique Goupil, who had led FileMaker for more than 20 years.įor most of that time, the subsidiary has had one main product: FileMaker Pro, which is what can be called a "low code" program for making custom apps for businesses that don't want to hire outside development help. It never went public and remained an Apple subsidiary.
The rebrand of a subsidiary that has little to do with the iPhone highlights that Apple is a middle-aged company as tech giants go: It has a lot of history and has some legacy parts that are only tangentially linked with the company's current primary business centered around selling mobile devices.Ĭlaris started as Apple's in-house database program, and there was a plan to spin it off from Apple in the late 1980s under Bill Campbell, an executive and business coach who was close to Apple co-founder Steve Jobs and other Silicon Valley stars.