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Subsidiary of Apple Computer (now FileMaker Inc )
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Simply, powerful software
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1987
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Santa Clara, California
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Bill Campbell, Founder and President
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300
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Computer Software
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Claris Em@iler , ClarisWorks , Claris Resolve , Claris Impact , FileMaker , MacWrite , MacPaint , MacDraw , MacProject
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was a
Computer Software Company formed as a spin-off from
Apple Computer in
1987 . They were given the
Code and
Right s to several programs that had been written within Apple, notably
MacWrite and
MacPaint , in order to separate Apple's software and
Hardware divisions. Over the next few years the company would be variously pushed and pulled in different directions, before eventually divesting themselves of all of their products but one, and reforming as
FileMaker Inc.
During the early days of the
Macintosh computer, Apple shipped the machines with two basic programs, MacWrite and MacPaint, so that users would have a working machine "out of the box". However this resulted in complaints from third party developers, who felt that these programs were good enough for so many users that there was little reason to buy something better. Apple decided to allow the programs to "wither", so that the third party developers would have a market to sell into.
Unfortunately the developers didn't seem to hold up their end of the bargain, and it was some time before truly capable replacements came along. In the meantime users complained about the lack of
Upgrade s, while the 3rd party
Developers continued to complain about any ''possibility'' of an upgrade.
Eventually Apple decided the only solution was to spin off the products to a third party of their own creation, forming Claris in 1987. Claris was also given the rights to several lesser-known Apple products such as
MacProject ,
MacDraw and
MacWorks . A new corporate headquarters was eventually built in
Santa Clara , a fair distance from the main Apple campus.
At first Claris seemed to have the same problems as Apple with the products. Upgrades were trivial, limited to simply making the program continue to run on newer versions of the Macintosh
Operating System . Things changed dramatically in
1988 when Claris purchased
Nashoba Systems to gain access to their product,
FileMaker . After a number of upgrades it was re-introduced into the market as FileMaker II, and was a huge success.
In
1990 , Apple decided that the now-successful Claris should remain a wholly-owned
Subsidiary , as opposed to eventually being spun off. This was unexpected by many of the managers, who were expecting a big payoff when the company had its
IPO . The company president soon left, and over the next year most of the other executives followed suit. This played havoc with development.
That same year Claris also purchased ''BSWorks'', an integrated application written by two former Claris employees. After rebranding in a style similar to FileMaker, it was released in
1991 as
ClarisWorks , and became another huge success for the company. After a lengthy series of ups and downs, this product was eventually purchased in
1998 by Apple and is now known as
AppleWorks .
In the later
1980s Claris started a major upgrade effort, re-writing all of their products to use a more modern and common user interface based on FileMaker. The result was the "Pro" series, MacPaint Pro, MacDraw Pro, MacWrite Pro and FileMaker Pro. In order to provide a complete
Office Suite they also purchased the rights to the
Informix WingZ Spreadsheet on the Mac, re-branding it as
Claris Resolve , and added the new
Presentation Program Claris Impact .
The series was released piecemeal over a period of about two years, during which period
Microsoft had basically taken over the majority of the market with
Microsoft Word and
Microsoft Excel . While the Claris packages were arguably much more "approachable" the first versions lacked some features of the now mature MS suite, leaving them lacking in "checkbox features". Their value was further eroded by aggressive bundling deals from Microsoft that could allow Word, Excel and PowerPoint to be purchased for a cost not much higher than MacWrite alone, a bundle that Claris did not match. Claris did offer ClarisWorks, an all-in-one package, and while the price was right it was very limited and could not compete in the
Business market.
About this time Apple upper management decided that software should be released through Claris, forcing them to take on
HyperCard and the distribution of the
Mac OS itself. This proved to be a disaster, the OS was soon returned to Apple, and HyperCard was destroyed in the process.
In
1995 Claris purchased and released
Claris Homepage , which enjoyed popularity as one of the only truly
GUI -based
WYSIWYG HTML Editor s of the time.
Other products added to the line included
Claris Em@iler ,
Claris OfficeMail , and
Claris Organizer . These products were part of a new effort to diversify Claris and no longer chase the "office" market, which by this point was considered a lost cause.
By the mid-90s it appeared to most observers that Apple was in serious danger of disappearing. The main ClarisWorks development team left Claris, disillusioned with the product and the market, and founded
Gobe Software , who produced a Claris-like office suite for the then-new
BeOS .
It was around this time that the management decided that FileMaker was the only product worth keeping, and put all of the rest of the products on indefinite hold—no changes were made to them at all, not even to keep them working on newer versions of the Mac OS. By
1997 the transition was complete and the company renamed itself as
FileMaker Inc. , and their only other major product, ClarisWorks, was sold back to Apple to become
AppleWorks . The company kept FileMaker and Claris HomePage 3.0 before homepage was discontinued in 2001 and FileMaker today is the only product left.
During this period, the rise and fall of Claris was seen by many as indicative of problems at that time within Apple as a whole. Unable to understand the marketplace, products were allowed to languish. When
Management finally realized they were sitting on what could be a goldmine, they started an upgrade series that resulted in products making it to market too late to be interesting any longer.
- MacTech, ''Claris Solutions Alliance Expansion'' , Dec. 4, 1996
- TidBITS, Michael Jardeen, ''To Home Page and Back Again'' , #422/30-Mar-98
- Wired News, Joe Ashbrook Nickell, ''What is Apple Up to With Claris Shake-up? '' , Jan. 27, 1998
- Alan Zisman, ''Apple Windows?-- Software for the rest of us?'' , March 18, 1994
