Let’s look at the basic reasons for having a database in the first place. Some years ago, we had a call from a small company in London who needed a fairly simple database to store nothing more than contacts and companies. We went along and asked what they currently did with keeping track of the people they knew, to which our client pointed at the pin board on the wall!
This is a true story. We found out later that they had all of their contacts in a PDA that was wiped clean!
Simple sharing
FileMaker Pro has networking ability built in, so two people can share the same database of contacts simply by installing FileMaker on two computers. One person opens and shares the database, while the other connects to it over the network. This is not recommended if there are more than five or six people, but does show how easy it can be to share.
Server sharing
If you have a large team of 10 plus people, especially if they will be using the system daily, you need to set up a server with the database on it. FileMaker server software is designed for this, and can share the database with up to 250 users, so you can keep building your business, knowing that your database is future proof.
Web connected
FileMaker can also be set up to be accessed over the web with nothing more than your favourite browser. There are a few possibilities for this, including dynamic web access, where FileMaker generates the pages for you, to custom web publishing and PHP. FileMaker can also access data directly from a SQL database over a ODBC connection. Imagine being able to access the database information from anywhere in the world on pretty much any computer with an internet connection.