why oh why
would we need a dedicated client if most modern databases can be accesed by webbrowsers?
FileMaker Pro, the Mac's answer to Microsoft Access, is now available for iOS – allowing the iPhone and iPad into the enterprise, as long as the enterprise is using FileMaker. To be fair, FileMaker Pro is now available for Windows too, but with its Claris heritage it's hard not to think of it as a Mac product first and …
Because believe it or not there is less overhead in maintenance. You would need to maintain the database, the webserver, support of various browsers on lots of platforms. Dedicated clients, simply fire up the DBMS server and connect the client, which can be the same on all platforms. Oracle and SQL*plus, a simple example.
"To be fair, FileMaker Pro is *now* available for Windows too" (My asterisks)
To be even fairer, I briefly did some Filemaker Pro/Windows Developments in 1998, and apart from some very minor font issues, it worked with perfectly well, so it's been able to do that for quite a while!
- Evil Steve, 'cause though I'm being fair, I still hate the buggers!
If you can download a database and store it on the device you're just asking to loose it on the train -- leaving customer records or personal details exposed.
Play with your iToy all you want -- but using stupid applications like this just leaves you open to compliance issues and other data protection issues.
you can apply the same argument to having a database stored on a laptop, even a Windows laptop, god forbid.
This sounds like FUD coming from IT who want to keep Apple out of the enterprise at all costs despite the wishes of their user base.
Its not the 1990's, you wont win this time, users are bringing in Apple iDevices in by the back door whether IT like it or not.
Not in the industry I work for they're not. Well, unless they want to loose multi-million dollar clients that is. They will use devices which can have policy applied and they will use approved encryption on all mobile devices, they will not use their own devices to store any data of any importance to clients -- failure to do so will result in crosses on auditors reports and failure of the business entirely due to lack of clients.
"As opposed to working on a laptop which is obviously impossible to leave lying around?" Having the database on a Laptop is a no-no too. Users should VPN in and use a front end app which retrieves only small amounts of the dataset or use a web portal from a machine with good security apps (firewall, AV, ...) which are checked regularly by someone who knows what they are doing. Developers and those tasked to work on large amounts of data should be VPNing in and using Citrix or other remote software to work on a machine which is safely locked away.
Databases themselves should remain on servers in data centres with controlled access or, at the very least, PCs in offices with controlled access on a machine with an encrypted drive. Heck, at absolute worst they should be on a laptop with full drive encryption and a sensible strength password.
This, on the other hand, is encouraging anyone to carry databases around with them on their latest tech toy. That's called being irresponsible and, in some cases, borderline illegal.
Steve wants to send computing back to the 80s and now we have another 80s style application rising from the grave like some sort of zombie.
Even if you do have a toy database platform, it still makes more sense to make the user facing frontend a web browser. That allows for a wide range of sophistication levels in your frontend app coding spanning the range from little more than shell scripts to serious secure enterprise computing. Code your interfaces right and you can even move freely between backend platforms.
One would have thought that all of the little PIM apps in the app store would make an application of this sort pretty redundant anyways.
Wow, talk about a blast from the past. I remember doing all the telephone support for Claris / Filemaker in the early 90's. Filemaker Pro 2.1 was so far above the dreadful Microsoft attempts at databases at the time. The only reason it didn't become more estabIished was because Microsoft starting bundling Access into Office. I haven't heard it mentioned in IT/development deps for ages.