Mikey Campbell
Wholly owned Apple subsidiary FileMaker Inc., makers of database programs FileMaker and the now-defunct Bento, reportedly conducted a round of layoffs on Thursday as the company restructures and consolidates its workforce.
People familiar with the situation told AppleInsider that FileMaker let go of approximately 20 employees Thursday night, including some company veterans with over 13 years of experience, in a bid to remain profitable amid slumping sales.
FileMaker's senior public relations manager Kevin Mallon would neither confirm nor deny the rumor, saying company policy precludes him from commenting on staffing matters.
The reported shake up comes just days after FileMaker announced it would be discontinuing development of its database application Bento, an important consumer-facing title that boasted versions for the Mac, iPad and iPhone. In a post to its support website, FileMaker said the program would be on sale through Sept. 30, while technical support is scheduled to continue through July 30, 2014.
Sources say Thursday's rumored job cuts are closely related to Bento's demise, adding California-based external representatives, sales engineers, and technical support staff were let go. The layoffs may extend further, however, as at least one person responsible for sales of the flagship FileMaker software is said to no longer be with the company.
Formed in 1998 from the remnants of erstwhile software maker Claris, FileMaker is headquartered in Santa Clara, Calif., and operates worldwide with offices in Asia, Europe and the Middle East.
William Gallagher
Christine McKee
AppleInsider Staff
Chip Loder
Malcolm Owen
54 Comments
I am confused by this article calling Bento "an important consumer-facing title". If it was formally released in 2008 and discontinued, it did not sound like there was enough customer interest in the software.
FileMaker is a really good database program, much preferable to Access in my opinion. But it could be a lot better and honestly is not very Apple-like in its UI. Of course, I'm only on v11, so my comment could be dated.
I am confused by this article calling Bento "an important consumer-facing title". If it was formally released in 2008 and discontinued, it did not sound like there was enough customer interest in the software.
No kidding. I thought I kept up on this stuff, but I'm not confident I'd ever heard of Bento before it was discontinued.
Bento is a wonderful personal database program that had a thriving user community that contributed templates and databases for others to share. It really should have been made a part of the iWork suite of programs. I use it all of the time to keep track of my charitable contributions, car maintenance records, wine list, blood pressure, blood glucose level and diet information. So many uses and it is quite a shame that it is being discontinued. I also use it to parse out CSV files into a database so that I can slice and dice the data, create entry forms etc. FileMaker is way too much program for a personal database and the price point for it is too high for personal use. If I need a full fledged database I create one using MySQL and use a web front end to access it. My thought is that FileMaker and by extension Apple is making a big mistake here by not keeping it alive and making it a part of iWork. I am a fanboy toward Apple so I don't say that lightly. Sad day.
Sad day.
While FileMaker Inc is indeed owned by Apple, My understanding is that it is operated independently from Apple. In other worlds, Apple didn't kill Bento and that wasn't their decision to do so. They are so separate, that Apple never included it in iWork because it is treated as a separate entity.
Simply put, Apple Likes FileMaker as it's own thing and doesn't want to brand them as Apple products.