FileMaker dropping Bento database app for Mac and iOS
FileMaker is dropping Bento, the consumer-friendly database app for OS X and iOS, in order to focus on its core products. The Mac app was first released in 2008 to generally positive reviews, followed by an iPhone version the following year and an iPad version in 2010.
Context & Ripple Effects
Bento was FileMaker's attempt at the other end of the database market: launched for the Mac in 2008, extended to the iPhone in 2009 and iPad in 2010, it sold simplicity where the flagship FileMaker line sells power. But the ground shifted under it in April 2012, when FileMaker shipped FileMaker 12 with new creation tools and themes and, crucially, made the iOS version of its flagship product free — removing most of the reason to pay for Bento on Apple's mobile platforms.
The shutdown follows a familiar script for consumer personal-software: Microsoft took the same path with MS Money in 2009, retiring a mass-market product once the economics stopped working. The pickup here is unusually broad for a product-sunset story — MacRumors, Macworld, 9to5Mac, and Softpedia all ran it the same day — which says more about how many people still used Bento than about any surprise.
First-order effects
- Existing Bento customers on OS X and iOS are left with an app headed for no further development, and must either stay put or migrate their data into the flagship FileMaker line.
- FileMaker frees engineering resources from a three-platform consumer product and concentrates them on FileMaker 12-era flagship work across Mac and iOS.
Second-order effects
- With Bento gone, the paid consumer-database slot on Mac and iOS opens up for third-party developers — but they now compete against a free flagship FileMaker iOS app that FileMaker itself set loose in 2012.
- The move pressures FileMaker to convert stranded Bento users into flagship customers rather than lose them entirely, since the two audiences overlap only partially.
Third-order effects
- If the pattern holds alongside precedents like Microsoft ending MS Money, big-vendor consumer utilities become structurally fragile: when a free or flagship product can absorb the use case, standalone consumer editions get culled regardless of brand loyalty.
- For the Apple ecosystem specifically, each such retirement nudges consumer users of personal databases toward either prosumer-priced tools or lightweight alternatives, reshaping who serves that middle tier.
The trend: Major software vendors are pruning standalone consumer applications whenever their own flagship or free offerings cover the same need, leaving the mid-market consumer tier to independents.