The licence cost is why I came to Xojo. I used FM up until the end of last year.
My understanding is that the license cost is going up quite significantly as well
Not sure how they justify that or how they think the market will sustain it. I know so many people who have left because of the cost of seats.
FileMaker wants to be SalesForce.
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Are you still using Filemaker Hal? When I used it I saw your help and solutions about from time to time.
Did you also have a product called Xojo Easydata around a while back?
Hey Rod,
Yep. I work in FM 4 days a week for two clients and Michael and Doug help several other clients with FM. FM itself it pretty good. It’s super stable and mostly bug free. It’s how I make most of our income.
I had hoped that Xojo would be a good alternative for FileMaker via Web apps mostly due to the pricing. Xojo EasyData was an earlier version of Xanadu which there were a few incarnations. Since XDC 2019, I’ve moved Xanadu to PHP.
If you’d like to see it so far, try the following link and register. Just please be nice to the data. Feel free to create new Contacts and delete them afterward. The PHP server and MySQL are both running on Amazon Lightsail.
https://xanphp-hal.campsoftware.com
Xanadu for PHP is different than Xojo coding but in some ways similar. The thing I like about it best is the lack of bugs in PHP. 
At some point, I hope to make it available to others.
I really don’t know if I’ll move to Xojo Web. I REALLY like how PHP has loose types and I can make changes on the fly without recompiling like FileMaker. As you know the data and code are intertwined in FileMaker, so PHP is even better in that the database is separate from the code. I REALLY worry that Xojo won’t fix bugs in a timely manner in Web 2.0. We’ll see…
In the meantime, I’ll watch the XDC 2020 Youtube videos…
there’s no reason to suspect any serious changes from past behaviour is there ?
this has been an ongoing and perpetual issue
they have so many targets, a handful of engineers, and so they spread their time around as best they can to try & address the most serious issues
and on adding things like API 2 which introduced a whole new set of bugs
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I spoke to Geoff a handful of times I stated my three issues:
- I need to know when Web 2.0 will ship. [ still don’t know ]
- I need bugs fixed in a timely manner.
- I need to see improvements in each release.
Like you said, based on past performance, I don’t know if any of those items will be addressed.
These three items are the “long list” I’m sure everyone who has used Xojo for a long time needs addressed
I’m in that boat as well
new targets dont matter to me
adding new controls mostly doesnt matter to me - I can write ones or get them from other third parties etc
but fixing outstanding bugs does
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I also don’t need new targets - I really have little need for Android. I know Geoff thinks that Android is important to get new users but he seems to miss the fact that the iOS market is absolutely massive and Xojo’s offering is a pile of s**t in my opinion. I would argue it would make much better sense to use the engineering talent on iOS instead of Android. New users coming to the platform aren’t going to have high expectations of Android anyway once they see how lacklustre the iOS effort is.
Lets say this - past experience with “Oh lets add a new target that will bring in TONS of new users” has shown this to not be the case
Add WEB and … floods of new users ? … no
iOS ? no
Pi ? no
so Android I do not expect tons of NEW users
I do expect that existing users will make use of it - but not piles of NEW users willing to pay for it
Focusing on new users is a fools errand
Make the existing targets outstanding
Improve it to the point that existing users are unwaveringly willing to promote it and recommend it
THAT, IMHO, is the best thing they could do
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Well said.
unfortunately this isnt the first time I have said this
publicly since I left
or privately when I worked there
but it never gets mind share
NEW USERS and NEW SALES are definitely the mantra but I would guess getting someone who already pays you 299 a year to pay you 699 a year is an easier sell job than getting someone who has no idea who you are tp pay you something (or moving a 299 user up to a 699)
One of bobs posts - I forget which - even had a number of respondents who said “make it rock solid and mostly bug free and I’d pay you a LOT more”
Some suggest prices points of 1999 and up
And for a full time dev thats an easy sell IF the product is really great
It definitely has a market and making that really great would, I suspect, go a long way to increasing revenue & promotion by non-employees
BTW being a contractor for the same company for 10 years seems unusual. One would expect a contractor to be made a permenant employee long before that… At least from what what I have seen.
If you don’t mind answering, was that your preference or theirs?
-karen
its was mutual
when I first got hired their payroll and hmo systems had no way to deal with someone outside the USA
dont know if that ever changed but they never said anything about moving me to being a full time employee so I’m guessing not
As an aside, there have been recent changes in the UK (starting from this April) that make that setup more difficult going forwards. It’s mostly an attempt by the government to improve workers rights as being a long term contractor / zero-hours worker / gig worker doesn’t give you many rights here.
A case in point is the fact that if you’re employed in the UK, you’ll get up to 80% of your salary (capped to £2500 / month) paid for by the government during this lockdown. Contrast with a freelancer or self employed person (like me) and if your income dries up you get < £400 / month. Rough.
yeah there are special rules for this kind of thing here, and the USA, as well
They could, but they missed the mark. NOW, Android users are full of great options, and FREE. And one, specially, tends to be a serious menace to the ENTIRE Xojo ecosystem in 2022. 
What product are you talking about?
-Karen
Free development tools from Google with a great language will reach stable, full xplat support, by 2021 if nothing weird happens.