Apple and Claris Home Page
When Apple took over Claris, they did a number of things. They left FileMaker alone, leaving them to do what they have been doing well for quite some time. FileMaker has been a premier database solution for many users for years. While it hasn’t become a serious competitor and mySQL is most likely going to rule in a Mac OS X UNIX Internet, it will most likely hold it’s own for the immediate future. Those who use it love it.
Apple took ClarisWorks and developed it into an awesome product for bundling with the iMacs and selling to schools as an alternative to the pricey Microsoft Office. ClarisWorks was bundled with the Performas, and was used in schools for quite some time, but the transformation to AppleWorks gave it a needed face lift as well as some new features to help it compete. Again, while it won’t rule the market, it should hold it’s own for the immediate future.
What I want to discuss is Claris Home Page. Stopped at version 3.0 and officially discontinued a few months ago, why did Apple stop development of this popular software package? It had a market that nobody today is able to fulfill. Take a look at the competition, there are “cheaper” html editors such as BBEdit and WebDesign, but they only edit HTML, there are WYSIWYG editors available like GoLive and DreamWeaver, but they are very expensive, and for many the features they give are not needed. The most reputable web designers around are not very reliant on editors as they only use them to code things such as tables that are just tedious. Most designers do the majority of work by coding the old fashion way with BBEdit or a similar product. This leaves a large market open. The designers who don’t want a fancy product, but want more than a text editor. This was a market that Claris Home Page dominated. It created tables with ease, and was able to handle image maps, the two things developers like to use an editor for. Granted it was out of date, if Apple would revamp the interface, and allow support for HTML4, CSS as well as XHTML and XML it would be right back in the game. A few small things such as updating the “add quicktime movie” and the ability to connect directly to iDisk via a menu and your all set. Claris Home Page 4 would be able to take back a market that right now is empty. There is no good product in the $100 price range that is anywhere near worth while. You are either paying way to much or paying to little, and getting to little.
Come on Apple, dig up the old source code, and sit down and draft an update. The market for an editor in that range is huge. No real fancy features, just a mean simple editor. Designed with the sole purpose of speeding up web design. That’s all we want.
