First, I hope you and those you love are well.
Second, I want to assure you COVID-19 has not moved Claris off course. For more than 30 years, our team and community have been developing the tools, technologies and strategies many other businesses are only now adopting. Nothing changes our commitment to providing power to the Problem Solvers.
So we have the same mission, but a very different environment.
CNBC recently reached out to learn how the crisis is impacting Claris and the future of low-code. The full article is a good read about companies finding new ways for software to make their businesses better. In short, I believe there’s room for optimism for a platform like ours.
"You never wish for a crisis to support your sector, but I think it will grow even more than forecast, partly because we will head into a downturn and that will put more cost pressure on organizations solving complex digital problems. In a strong market, they could solve it with a bigger budget and industrial-strength solutions, but we are going to see a more pragmatic approach."
- Brad Freitag
All of us in the Claris Community will play a critical role in helping the world adapt to a new normal.
The effects of this crisis will stay with us for some time, impacting each business differently. Many of you have shared concerns and questions recently, so let’s look at some specific examples of what COVID-19 means for Claris.
Q. What does Claris’ future look like?
Claris is as strong as it has ever been. A benefit of our decades of consistent strength is that rather than hunkering down to weather the storm, our team is focused on the future. This was true 24 hours before COVID-19 lockdown, and it remains true today.
In many ways the Claris Community has been preparing for this moment for decades. All of us, and especially Partners, were talking about digital transformation long before it became a buzzword. We were championing workflow automation before it became an economic necessity.
Companies will be looking for proven solutions and trusted advisors, not companies or products that were founded last year and may be gone by tomorrow. This is the confidence and certainty you bring to your customers when they need it the most.
Q. What investments are you making to strengthen the company and platform?
Our purpose within Claris is Power to the Problem Solver. Since the outbreak we have only increased our investments in our people, partners, customers, and platform. Below are just a few examples of how we continue to invest in our mission.
- People - During the past quarter we have onboarded a new VP of Marketing and a new VP of Engineering. Both hires bring incredible strength of leadership and vision. We have also grown our product and engineering teams to accelerate product development.
- FileMaker 19 - Long before COVID-19, we made a commitment to our community that the next generation of Claris FileMaker would ship in May. We will meet this deadline. This release will push the envelope on both agility and smarts.
- Claris Connect - Because we believe every FileMaker customer should be able to experience the combined value of FileMaker and Connect, we have introduced new pricing options for FileMaker users. We also expanded our offerings for developers.
- Marketplace - We’re continuing our investments in the Claris Marketplace to provide a curated library of apps, templates, tools, and training resources. We are on schedule to ship significant updates/expansions to Marketplace in 2020.
Q. What has the response been from the Claris Community?
Our team and our Community have responded to this crisis in amazing ways, from volunteering nearly 6,000 collective monthly hours to creating more than 20 high-impact custom apps for frontline workers in healthcare, education, and disaster response. The past six weeks have been some of our proudest as a company.
For those who haven’t heard about the good work being done by our Community, you can read more here.
Q. What resources exist for Partners?
Our strong commitment to our Partners hasn’t wavered during this crisis or those in years past. Together, we’ve seen our way through many economic downturns and have always come out stronger together on the other side.
To illustrate this commitment, I am excited to announce that we have created a focus for Partner Marketing within a newly formed Community Relations team run by Gianine Campbell. We want to promote your successes and have initiated a program to do just that. We are collecting and sharing stories from our Partners to help drive new business and inspire the rest of the community. If you would like to share your story via Claris, please reach out to our team at partners@claris.com.
Now more than ever, visibility for small businesses matter. Marketplace is a powerful opportunity to showcase your expertise via templates, examples, and products. There is no cap to how much you can post, and as always Partners post at no fee.
We are also ready to promote your virtual events via our Events Program. You can register your events here.
For a full list of resources, visit partner.claris.com.
Closing thoughts
I will continue to share updates to address the Partner questions we receive. I want to hear from you - where you are struggling, where you are succeeding, and what questions you have. I look forward to continuing our conversation.
Best,
Brad