Mac Desktop Database Void
After writing my last post about FileMaker 10.0 and reviewing a couple early reviews of FileMaker 10 on Macworld’s web site that I have to comment on the void of Mac desktop databases.
(See: “Expo: FileMaker turns 10 with database update” and “First Look: FileMaker Pro 10“)
First let me say that there are plenty of desktop databases available for Mac if you are looking for just a database. Fore example there is MySQL, SQLite (comes with 10.5), PostgreSQL, and Firebird, to name just a few. And these are fine if all you are looking for is a database and you don’t mind writing scripts to manipulate your data. There are some tools out there for managing tables.
If you are a developer like me you can write your own applications for data entry and reports. These can be desktop applications written in Java, Objective-C, Real Basic, or some other language and window frame work suitable for building desktop applications. You can also develop Web applications that you run only on your computer using PHP, Ruby, Perl, Python, etc… All these languages come pre installed on your Mac as well. There is a variety of IDEs (Integrated Development Environments) that you could use to manage the development of your applications that you build to manage your data such as Xcode, Eclipse and RealBasic. But even I, a veteran developer, having made a career out of developing applications this way gets tired when I want something quick and easy.
So what are your other choices? If you run MS Windows you can use MS Access. If you can install OpenOffice you have Base, and finally there is FileMaker.
There use to be other choices out there a long time ago — such as dBase, FoxPro, and Clipper. Sybase still produces PowerBuilder and I believe that you can still purchase a personal desktop edition. Oracle had some personal desktop database products, so did IBM/Lotus… But most of these products ran on Windows and to use any of these you need to have some programming skills.
So what about Mac. There is nothing, its a black hole, a void. The folks at FileMaker know this and yet they still refuse to add in usable features such as:
- Pivot Tables
- Graph Objects
- Views
- Programable Form Objects
- Embedded Subforms
- Stored Procedures and Functions
- A real IDE for advanced development
The Mac community needs MS Access or something just as equivalent in functionality for OS X. We need a self contained solution for creating tables, views, forms and reports. The ability to export the results of the data to PDF, HTML, XML, and CSV. We need a way to develop solutions that can easily be packaged up distributed to users using Mac, Windows, and Linux. It needs to be easy enough that an administrative assistant can figure it out, but powerful enough that a developer could take what the administrative assistant started and turn it into an enterprise application. FileMaker in general is a great concept but it needs to be rewritten from the ground up. Forget Bento that POS just needs to die. Its user interface is prettier than FileMaker but its functionality blows. The other alternative is for MS to release Access for the Mac. I would love to know if they have tried porting it at one time or another.
The first person or company that can truly fill this need is going to make a boat load of money. Lets face it not everything belongs on the web.
