| In 1987, Apple Computer Corporation spun off its application software business into a separate company. They named it Claris Corporation, probably a little joke in relation to Clarus the DogCow, a funny Apple icon from the good old days.
Apple initially created the Claris subsidiary to handle the original AppleWorks. AppleWorks turned into ClarisWorks, and in the late '90s, Apple's big cheeses turned ClarisWorks into AppleWorks again and began dissolving the company. Claris Inc. became Filemaker Inc., which still exists today. Filemaker Inc. made Claris Home Page and Filemaker Pro, basically the biggest and bestest killer app database application for the Mac. Home Page has since been discontinued but Filemaker Pro is still maintained. In the end, Filemaker was Claris' lasting contribution to the software industry.
Claris also published a number of programs which originally were bundled with older Apple computers, like the later versions of MacPaint and MacWrite. Most of Claris' programs were for the Macintosh, but the older AppleWorks was for the Apple II.
Thanks to ryano for clarifying some facts for me. | 
