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FileMaker Mobile Discontinued

I received an email from FileMaker, Inc today notifying me that FileMaker Mobile will be discontinued at the end of the 2007 calendar year. FileMaker has sited “technical innovations” of “Internet-enabled devices” such as the Apple iPhone that ship with sophisticated web browsers as being the main reason for Mobile being discontinued. The statement sent out by FileMaker, Inc reads:

“Why is FileMaker, Inc. discontinuing the sales and development of FileMaker Mobile 8?

Technological innovations and the availability of Internet-enabled devices are rapidly changing mobile computing. Apple has introduced the iPhone and FileMaker, Inc. has invested in several technologies to enable customers to publish live data to the Web, most recently PHP. For more information on FileMaker PHP technology, visit: http://www.filemaker.com/support/technologies/php.html

For offline use, a number of 3rd party solutions have emerged that help people move data back and forth between FileMaker Pro and mobile devices.

December 19, 2007 will be the last day to place an order for FileMaker Mobile 8.”

FileMaker has been working hard to move their application platform to the web, and FileMaker Pro 9 and FileMaker Server 9 make putting FileMaker applications on the web even easier. So I’m not really surprised by this move. Further more, I’ve never been a big power user of FileMaker Mobile because I never really got the sense that FileMaker was really supporting the product from the beginning. For example, you couldn’t store a FileMaker Mobile database on a SD card, and it wasn’t until very late in the product cycle were you able to sync to a database that was being hosted on a FileMaker server.

FileMaker, Inc will stop selling FileMaker Mobile 8 at the close of business on December 19, 2007. Technical support for FileMaker Mobile 7 and 8 will continue on until June 18, 2008.

Additional information on alternative solutions and FileMaker Mobile can be found at: http://www.filemaker.com/support/fmm_eol.html