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Tag: low-code development

  • How ‘Some-Code’ Platforms Perform a Balancing Act

    How ‘Some-Code’ Platforms Perform a Balancing Act

    Recently, there’s been a surge of interest in visual programming models, all with varying degrees of user-friendliness. These low-code platforms utilize drag-and-drop elements to help citizen developers stitch together applications, avoiding the complexities of hard-coding connections. Such platforms are crucial amid a developer drought and shine in their usability. But, how usable is too usable?

    “A low-code platform should abstract complexity, yet always offer a way under the hood,” said Jesse Orshan of WayScript. In other words, the platform should never get in the way of advanced mechanics. To do so, “some-code” platforms balance usability and customizability.

    I recently spoke with WayScript co-founders Jesse Orshan and Lane Eden to see how some-code combines traditional coding and low-code. As opposed to a 100% visual no-code experience, some-code focuses on operational automation while granting a peek under the hood. Read on to see how the notion of “some-code” may set itself apart from the larger visual programming movement.

    Why Just ‘Some-Code’?

    To understand some-code, consider the greater industry. As I recently covered, many factors are spurring a low-code revitalization. One is the need for rapid development for internal tools. Orshan acknowledged how “cumbersome, costly, and time-consuming it is to build and maintain internal tools.”

    Many developers are fully capable of, for example, programming a native iOS app. Yet, turning that into a business application with a back-end running in the cloud with the proper databases, server arrangement, access management, and continuous deployment strategy is a whole different story.

    “The idea is to blend coding and low-code,” Orshan said. “Scaffolding is the most difficult part of development.” Therefore, a some-code platform provides an operational toolset—a framework that enables developers to focus on their application logic.

    Some-Code Leverages Event-Driven Architecture

    Event-triggering has become common within modern programming. Triggering is necessary for automating tasks and workflows involving interconnected tools.

    For example, say an internal tool for a sales department must automatically update a lead spreadsheet and send a Slack notice once an email is received from a prospective client. This process requires scripting a series of API queries involving Gmail, Salesforce and Slack APIs.

    Though the logic seems simple from the outset, hooking together applications is not a trivial task. “Building a robust triggering system that can scale with your load is a very complicated thing to do,” said Eden. HTTP API integration is a unique skill that not all possess. “Thereʼs an understated art to building good APIs,” according to an Increment blog post.

    The hurdles of API integration have already given rise to drag-and-drop workflow services such as IFTTT and Zapier. Some-code applications, too, could quickly enable developers to mix-and-match APIs in the programming language of their choice.

    Other Some-Code Benefits

    Internal tooling can be a big pain point. It’s “bespoke and custom to every business,” said Orshan. Utilizing drag-and-drop components alongside an IDE, some-code could lower the DevOps barrier for constructing enterprise-grade interconnected applications that require testing, auto-build and deployment automation. Here are some other some-code benefits:

    • Abstracted type system: APIs are at the heart of many low code initiatives, enabling integrations with third-party tooling to enable event-based modeling. Some-code could enable developers to program logic without hardcoding integrations, offering a “unifying system abstracted type system,” noted Orshan.
    • Flexibility: A unique prospect of some-code is that it could retain the programming language developers are accustomed to.
    • Aids rapid development: Some code seeks to abstract things away, making it easier for developers to quickly solve core problems.
    • Fill integration talent gap: A lack of specialized talent encompasses integration engineers and IT security disciplines. According to OutSystems, 45% of businesses adopt low-code to reduce dependency on hard-to-hire technical skills.

    The Reality of ‘Citizen Development’

    Problem-solvers come in all skill sets. Some are programming novices with little know-how, and UIs cater well to this group. However, only 8% of companies say they have business users utilizing a no-code platform without IT intervention, according to OutSystems’ 2019 State of Application Development report. Instead, the majority of low-code users are professional IT developers, at 69%.

    “There is a place for visual elements, and there is a place for coding,” said Eden. “Sometimes, writing a function in Python is just way more efficient.”

    Though low-code providers may trumpet the citizen development ideal, in reality, in 2019, only 20% cited enabling citizen developers as a key reason for adopting low-code. Perhaps this need will increase subsequent a fully remote economy and a developer talent shortage. Yet, as of now, experienced software developers are the ones using and benefiting from low-code tools.

    Final Thoughts

    The usability of no-code empowers business technologists to build basic workflows, yet lacks deep customization abilities. Yet, pure manual programming slows when you consider the many web APIs, differing standards and DevOps tooling integrations necessary to deploy modern enterprise-grade cloud applications.

    The premise behind some-code is to help skilled developers stitch the operational scaffolding around their source code, helping integrate, validate, test and deploy software in a more streamlined approach. This style could be a better balance for advanced developer teams requiring an extra push.

    “Our guiding philosophy is there should always be a way to get under the hood,” said Orshan. “The platform should never get in the way.”

  • APIs: The Secret Sauce for Low-Code Platforms?

    APIs: The Secret Sauce for Low-Code Platforms?

    As companies become increasingly talent-strapped, APIs are helping spur a low-code movement to help them remain competitive

    Low-code platforms have the potential to alter how software is built and delivered. By focusing on visual flows and drag-and-drop UIs, low-code platforms dramatically lower the barrier to software development.

    Yet, anyone with a toe in the no-code waters will tell you the space is full of half-promises. Can you scale an entire enterprise software architecture with zero code? Probably not. Can a low-code platform single-handedly create and expose compelling infrastructure? Maybe.

    I recently met with Jon Scolamiero, manager, architecture and governance at Mendix, a Siemens business that bills itself as a low-code alternative, to get to the bottom of the low-code phenomenon.

    Read on to discover why low-code platforms could be the next big thing. We’ll cover low-code benefits and caveats, the use of low-code in agile application delivery and how an API-first emphasis sets some low-code providers apart.

    What is Low-Code?

    Low-code platforms use drag-and-drop tools to help non-developers assemble software solutions. Instead of coding every line, integrating with databases and programming network integrations, low-code users visually construct application models with default containers that initiate the logical processes and data storage abilities they require.

    In this way, low-code is dramatically abstracted from standard software development. Examples of low-code platforms on the market include Siemen’s Mendix, Amazon’s Honeycode, Google’s AppSheet, Microsoft’s Power App and OutSystems. Among these solutions, default configurations and customization abilities vary.

    Low-Code Benefits

    With the growing need for more applications, companies turn to productivity solutions such as low-code development to quicken velocity. There are, theoretically, many other benefits to low-code or “no-code” platforms:

    • Welcomes “citizen developers” into the fold: Low-code platforms offer unprecedented usability for the less technical folks. By reducing the barrier to entry, laypeople can participate in complex application development.
    • Break silos and improve collaboration: Since non-technical roles can become more involved, low-code enables better collaboration between teams. It provides a common language for organizations.
    • Improved time to value: Some low-code platforms allow you to build, deploy and run instantly, thus dramatically reducing development time. Especially if integrated with CI/CD capabilities, using low-code platforms means a greatly decreased time-to-value.
    • Addresses the talent gap: In a world of high engineering demand but few developers, low-code development spurs continual growth in light of a limited workforce.
    • Cloud-agnostic: Low-code can grant cloud-agnostic capabilities, enabling companies to run applications on SAP cloud, Azure or “lift and shift” to other cloud vendors.
    • Platform-agnostic: Low-code platforms also offer device-agnostic capabilities, meaning the application could run native mobile code. A low-code layer could also help cater to other experiences, such as voice, chatbot or smart televisions.

    Low-code could also support digital transformation initiatives for internal, non-commercial solutions. For example, a manufacturer could leverage low-code capabilities to quickly spin up connected digital solutions to help operationalize factory production.

    Low-Code Caveats

    Though low-code suggests many positive outcomes, Scolamiero said that industrywide, there are some issues:

    • Security: Good security with low-code is possible yet complex to implement. Low-code platforms must carefully handle access management and delegate identity throughout the app ecosystem.
    • Normalizing expectations: Low-code isn’t magic. These platforms have their limits and do take time to onboard. Scolamiero encouraged having a robust training program ready and available “to teach everyone how to fish.”
    • Consulting services: Scolamiero cautioned IT leaders to beware of some solutions that taut the low-code or no-code label, yet are more akin to consulting divisions. Buying armies of service people is “not a respectful business model for a customer,” he said.
    • No universal standards: Scolamiero noted that the low-code industry has yet to unite on a data integration at scale method.

    APIs Under the Hood: The Secret Sauce

    In 2002, Amazon CEO Jeff Bezos issued a companywide mandate, which has become known informally as the “API Manifesto.” In it, he stated that “all teams will henceforth expose their data and functionality through service interfaces.”

    This API-first strategy increased internal efficiency and reusability, and eventually enabled Amazon to resell its own infrastructure, creating a whole new class of impressive revenue streams. Lyft is another excellent example of a microservices-driven product.

    Many developers now fully understand the power of wrapping everything in a web service. Yet, based on his conversations with clients, Scolamiero estimated that 1 in 6 CIOs are still unaware.

    “If they were, we would have 10 Amazons at this point, not one,” he said. “It’s really easy to wrap your head around data having value, but now it’s the infrastructure that matters.”

    An added emphasis on APIs fits into the current trend toward event-driven, message-based systems. Having the ability to expose APIs to different clouds increases API elasticity, he said.

    Keeping APIs and Low-Code Under the Hood

    Low-code and no-code solutions promise that anyone can become a developer. While the reality is a bit more complicated, with the right frameworks in place, perhaps teams can become closer to that ideal.

    Utilizing an API-first approach both for systems that comprise low-code platforms and providing the ability to expose data through APIs could give low-code platforms an edge.

    According to Scolamiero, tech leaders are still “digitalizing traditional paper processes.” They don’t often think of streamlining event-driven architecture, or how infrastructure itself could have external value.

    Regardless, if it successfully executes a business case, then it works. Perhaps business leaders don’t necessarily have to know what’s under the hood. That’s sort of the point of low-code, isn’t it?

  • Appian Infuses Low-Code Platform With AI

    Appian Infuses Low-Code Platform With AI

    Appian this week released an update to its low-code application development and deployment platform that employs artificial intelligence (AI) to recommend best next steps, including how to address cybersecurity issues.

    In addition, the latest version of Appian also makes it easier to incorporate robotic process automation (RPA) modules to automate rote tasks in addition to adding support for Google Cloud Document AI, which makes extracting documents for use within an application that employs RPA easier.

    Malcom Ross, vice president of product strategy for Appian, said the machine learning algorithms embedded with the Appian cloud platform make it possible to embrace best DevSecOps practices to accelerate the development of secure applications. With the rise of automated machine learning (autoML) it’s also becoming easier to automate the process of applying machine learning algorithms to application development and deployment, he said.

    While low-code platforms go a long way toward simplifying application-building, Ross said not enough attention is being paid to the deployment process. The goal is not necessarily to roll out more applications faster but to ensure whatever applications are deployed achieve a level of quality that eliminates the need to address cybersecurity issues post-deployment.

    Appian achieves that goal by running automated tests for an application, which now also include Appian Plug-ins to detect potential mismatches in plug-in versions or plug-ins that are missing.

    Ross said that when it comes to AI there always will be some trepidation. However, there are many manual tasks that many developers would just as soon see automated using AI. As AI becomes more widely relied on to drive consumer application experiences, the more acceptance there will be among IT teams to automate internal processes, he noted, adding cybersecurity is one area in which most developers will appreciate whatever help AI can provide.

    AI is not likely to replace the need for a DevOps team or cybersecurity professionals anytime soon. However, at a time when many organizations are massive amounts of economic pressure, it’s clear AI has a significant role to play in reducing the total cost of IT. Despite advances in IT automation, the cost of labor remains one of the most expensive elements of any IT budget. As such, IT organizations have a keen interest in making sure DevOps teams and cybersecurity teams are not wasting time on tasks that might be better handled by a machine.

    Obviously, the way AI systems and IT teams will interact with one another is still being defined. However, the one thing that is certain is platforms such as Appian will be making more recommendations about what needs to be done when. It may take some time for IT professionals to have confidence in those AI recommendations; however, in terms of mistakes that are routinely made it’s also apparent IT teams will soon be running out of excuses.

  • Low-Code Development: The Future of Communications Experiences

    Low-Code Development: The Future of Communications Experiences

    The benefits of embedding real-time communications features into business and consumer applications are well-known. When it comes to customer service, most people would much rather click-to-call from within a web experience, social media site or business application to connect with another person, than find their phone to dial a number and wait in a queue. 

    In today’s new digital world–where instant gratification comes when consumers can choose their communication channel of choice and get their issues resolved more quickly–businesses only stand to benefit from delivering better service with fewer intermediaries. Customer service isn’t the only beneficiary of innovation in communications platform as a service (CPaaS)–web developers can add options to get answers automatically, or from an expert, without the presence of a full contact center. Even small businesses with limited staff can interact with customers through communications channels embedded into their websites or mobile apps, automatically directing questions about specific products, orders or services to the right person through text messaging, email or voice.

    This is all made possible through CPaaS–and this is where the future of customer communications experiences lies.

    Breakthroughs in CPaaS Are Powering Embedded Communications

    CPaaS is one of those industry acronyms that has been tossed around for a few years now, but what exactly is it? CPaaS is a cloud-based platform that enables developers to add real-time communications features to their own applications without the complexity of building infrastructure typically required when developing apps. 

    The ability to embed communications capabilities directly into apps or websites enables businesses of any size to engage customers more effectively across different communications channels, including mobile, web and desktop environments. The result is a much-improved customer experience leading to increased customer satisfaction, customer loyalty and recurring revenues.

    Breakthroughs in CPaaS are making it increasingly easier to embed voice, video, messaging, chat, presence and collaboration into experiences than ever before. Instead of building backend infrastructure and interfaces, CPaaS-based applications are made accessible through low-code development platforms. These platforms allow developers to access the robust application logic within the CPaaS with just a few lines of code, made possible through APIs. These APIs empower developers to quite literally copy and paste code by dragging and dropping application components and connecting them together to create a mobile or web app.

    As an industry, we’ve spent the better part of the last few years building out embedded real-time communications solutions. With low-code development, new communications capabilities take only minutes to create and launch, versus years, months, weeks or even days. By making it easier to add immersive communications solutions into existing applications, low-code development allows companies to introduce innovations such as communications-enabled business processes and automate any component of business processes.

    The Future of Communications Experiences

    There’s no doubt–the future is low-code solutions. In our digital world, with the right CPaaS technology, and a little creativity and planning, businesses can now accomplish things that would have been impossible without the support of APIs. 

    We are just at the beginning of even more exciting and valuable applications. By accessing the massive compute and software application capabilities of CPaaS through just a few APIs, harnessing the power of artificial intelligence and natural language processing is possible. Applications including voice recording, transcription and analytics for greater insights will be made a reality. Bots that sound like humans and can speak in multiple languages, with multiple choices for voices, will leave old breakthroughs like interactive voice response in the dust.

    We’re still early in the cycle, but the benefits and applications of low-code development continue to grow. Jump in–you may be surprised how easy it is to roll out new services that customers will love, and your business will thank you for.

  • Quick Base Makes Free Low-Code Platform Available for First Responders

    Quick Base Makes Free Low-Code Platform Available for First Responders

    Quick Base, a provider of a platform for building low-code applications, announced this week that it is making its platform available for free through Sept. 30 to first responder organizations that need to build applications quickly to address the COVID-19 pandemic.

    Jay Jamison, chief product and technology officer for Quick Base, said it’s apparent first responders soon will need applications to track things ranging from assets such as ventilators to heat maps that show the number of patients in a geographic area relative to the number of intensive care units (ICUs) available.

    Quick Base is also making available templates that can be employed to build the most common types of emergency response applications, such as ones already being employed by the City of New Orleans.

    Examples of other applications that will be needed include the ability to track businesses in real-time that may be flouting COVID-19 restrictions or landlords that are evicting tenants despite emergency decrees, noted Jamison.

    Most of these applications will need to be developed in days versus weeks or months. To that end, Quick Base is also making available to first responder organizations the expertise of its internal customer success staff as well as third-party consultants, he said.

    In addition, Quick Base plans to certify many of these applications for distribution via its online store, which will make it easier for a first responder organization in one locality to leverage an application that has already been developed by another first responder organization.

    In general, Jamison said first responder organizations will need to apply DevOps principles across their entire organization to adjust to highly fluid situations. Applications undoubtedly will need to be modified as processes evolve and new emergency decrees are declared, he noted.

    The biggest challenge from an IT perspective is many first responder organizations lack the process expertise needed to build an application on the fly. Volunteers with IT expertise will be needed to work alongside medical experts, who will need applications that most likely will be deployed in the cloud but made accessible via a range of mobile computing devices. The chances all those applications will work perfectly when first deployed is almost nil, so timely updates to applications will be critical.

    Of course, applications and IT processes are not always the first things that come to mind to combat a pandemic. However, the faster first responders can respond to changing conditions on the ground, the more lives that might potentially be saved. In some large cities, it’s probable first responders already have access to a range of applications that to vary degrees might scale to meet the current challenge. However, in smaller localities, the availability of such applications is nominal at best.

    Quick Base is not the only provider of low-code and no-code tools for building applications, so there are plenty of options for building applications quickly. Whichever the platform employed, time is going to be of the essence. Outbreaks in Italy, Spain and China have already shown how quickly events can spiral out of control. If any new application is going to be relevant in any other emerging CIVID-19 hot zone, the work to build that application needs to start immediately.

    — Mike Vizard

  • Low-Code Meets DevOps: A Smart Way to Manage Modern App Delivery Demands

    Low-Code Meets DevOps: A Smart Way to Manage Modern App Delivery Demands

    In a fast-moving and often fiercely competitive marketplace, companies need to embrace technology to stay relevant and drive growth. To this end, the business community is increasingly placing a high priority on digital transformation. In fact, more than 80% of organizations believe that digital transformation is crucial to business success.

    Digitally driven processes can power increased business speed and agility, as well as enhance competitive differentiation. Many organizations are now focusing on tools and methodologies that allow them to optimize more processes through accelerated internal application development efforts. Their goal is to be able to create, test and deploy the volume (and variety) of applications required to elevate performance and unlock more opportunities.

    In response to these growing needs for rapid app delivery, DevOps practices are evolving and becoming more critical to the success and agility of a business. According to a study conducted by Verified Market Research, the global DevOps market was valued at $3.62 billion in 2018 and is projected to reach USD 20.01 billion by 2026. Today, many businesses are combining DevOps approaches with low-code or no-code app development platforms, because these solutions provide them with the tools to build applications faster and more efficiently. This strategy helps to alleviate the immense pressures placed on developers today, by streamlining their workloads and responsibilities, while simultaneously enabling them to reduce their development cycle times.

    The Business Benefits of Fast, Agile Application Development

    Due to combining the roles, practices and culture of software developers and ITOps teams, DevOps allows a business to deploy apps more rapidly and with a higher degree of consistency. This is essential in organizations where there’s more pressure than ever before to deliver applications at the speed of internal and external demand.

    Often, the goal of adopting DevOps within a company is to reduce the tedious manual tasks that monopolize developers’ time and lead to app delivery backlogs. Solutions that help lighten and streamline the workload of DevOps–through automation and low-code development environments–are becoming more critical as a growing number of demands are being put on this still somewhat evolving, yet increasingly prioritized, team role and culture.

    Outlined below are a few examples of how low-code app development platforms can enhance the growing role of DevOps and improve the bottom line. This approach helps to:

    • Broaden the app development space to non-technical professionals: As mentioned before, low-code platforms enable a wider pool of less-technical users to work on and improve the speed at which applications can be built. Instead of the traditional app development team being solely responsible for a growing number of application requests, business users are now able to support digital transformation efforts by building and modifying their own processes, without writing complex lines of code.

    This approach makes the process of development more accessible to non-technical professionals. As a result, businesses can liberate their developers from routine coding work and redeploy these highly skilled individuals to more strategic projects that are critical to core business processes.

    • Facilitate faster application building: In addition to making application builds more accessible and less complex, the low-code environment also speeds up the entire development and deployment process. With this approach, companies can reduce development timelines from weeks or months to hours or days. Accelerating this cycle is crucial in any business that aims to outpace competitors.
    • Streamline consistent application deployment: Low-code platforms can integrate into toolchains (or a set of programming tools) that can automate the deployment of applications across various business environments. This ensures that apps created by non-developers can be deployed in the same manner as traditional, developer-based applications. This consistency provides a lower cost of ownership because it allows a low-code platform to more easily integrate into the business processes and workflows the organization already has in place. This minimizes the risk of disruption and irregularities.

    As businesses embrace innovation and elevate performance across the enterprise through agile, accelerated app delivery, the role and function of DevOps will continue to grow in influence and priority. Businesses that strategically leverage low-code solutions in combination with modern DevOps practices are likely to position themselves for growth, competitive differentiation and sustainable business success.

    — Holly Anderson

  • Low-Code Has Taken Development by Storm. Why Not the Web?

    Low-Code Has Taken Development by Storm. Why Not the Web?

    For more than a decade, development tools increasingly have made their way into the hands of less-technical people. On the web in particular, we’ve eliminated the webmaster as the middleman with content management systems and moved progressively toward a model where non-technical users could assemble their own sites with little to no coding experience of their own.

    Fast forward and today, the terms “no-code” and “low-code” are used to describe this idea. Furthermore, no-code and low-code tools have been on a decade-long rise, with an increasing impact on the web. Examples include:

    While this has been a strong, decade-long market trend, we’re only at the beginning. This trend won’t stop until new website experiences are automatically generated and optimized by machine learning.

    Trends Driving the Low-Code and No-Code Movements

    According to Wave, “In our survey of global developers, 23% reported using low-code platforms in 2018, and another 22% planned to do so within a year.”

    Major market forces driving this trend include a talent shortage among developers, with an estimated 1 million computer programming jobs expected to remain unfilled by 2020 in the U.S. alone. What’s more, the developers who are employed are often overloaded with work and struggle with how to prioritize it all. Some of this burden could be removed by low-code and no-code tools, allowing marketers and other non-technical professionals to do some of the development work themselves. In addition, the fact that technology has permeated every aspect of our lives, from our smartphones to our smart homes, has driven the need for more people to become creators.

    “As creating things on the internet becomes more accessible, more people will become makers. It’s no longer limited to the <1% of engineers that can code, resulting in an explosion of ideas from all kinds of people,” said Ryan Hoover, founder of Product Hunt, in a blog post.

    In other words, the supply of web creators must keep up with the demand for more digital experiences across more channels.

    But this does not only apply to individuals. Consider this: The typical large organization has to build and maintain hundreds of sites. These organizations need to build, launch and customize sites in days or weeks, not months. Today and in the future, marketers and other non-technical stakeholders can embrace no-code and low-code tools to develop websites rapidly.

    Abstraction Drives Innovation

    As predicted in my middleman blog post, developers won’t go away. Just as the role of the original webmaster has evolved with the advent of the CMS, the role of web developers is changing with the rise of low-code and no-code tools.

    Today, developers tend to focus on creating next-generation digital experiences that require new and emerging technologies not yet available in no-code solutions. In the process, they help invent and build new technologies such as React, Vue.js, etc.

    Successful no-code approaches abstract away complexity for web development. This enables less-technical people to do things that previously only could be done by developers. When those abstractions happen, developers can move on to the next area of innovation.

    Such abstractions are a good thing for both developers and non-technical website creators. When everyone is a builder, more good things will happen on the web. I was excited about this trend more than 12 years ago and remain excited today. I’m eager to see the progress no-code and low-code solutions will bring to the digital world in the next decade.

    — Dries Buytaret

  • Low-Code Providers Continue Enhancing Their Development Platforms

    Low-Code Providers Continue Enhancing Their Development Platforms

    Enterprise low-code development continues to grow in popularity as software vendors continue to unveil tool enhancements designed to help business users and non-developers build functional applications and business processes.

    The help from low-code platforms (and other platforms that are integrating low-code capabilities) couldn’t come at a better time, as enterprises continue to struggle to digitize operations and dig through their application backlogs.

    Consider open source digital process automation platform Bonitasoft and its recent increased support for low-code development and what the company promises to be accelerated user interface development for more customized user experiences. The platform (including a new Bonita Cloud edition) helps to enhance collaboration between professional developers and so-called citizen developers, according to the company.

    Recently, low-code development platform provider OutSystems announced it is adding new artificial intelligence (AI) and machine learning capabilities into its platform. The company said the enhancements provide customers the ability to help automate the creation of self-service portals, respond to text and voice queries and improve customer service.

    OutSystems said citizen developers now can more easily build communication channels into their apps and better utilize virtual assistants such as Alexa, Google and Siri, as well as common chatbot platforms. The company claimed developers don’t need any specialized development skills or knowledge in data science to use these features. “These new, high-level components package everything organizations need to implement rich use cases from end to end. As a result, many more companies can easily adopt AI and machine learning to positively impact their business,” said António Alegria, OutSystems’ head of artificial intelligence.

    According to the research firm Gartner, by next year, consumers will manage 85% of their relationship with enterprises without having to interact with a human. However, despite the use of AI having tripled over the past four years, two-thirds of organizations have yet to deploy AI in some form, it noted.

    According to Research and Markets, the global low-code development platform market size will reach just over $27 billion by 2022, up from $4 billion in 2017 and a 44% annual growth rate.

    According to the research firm, it is the increased demand in software automation and innovative applications and the ease of development of web and mobile apps that are driving enterprise demand for low-code development. “Moreover, the cloud-based deployment mode is gaining high traction in the market, as it requires less capital investment, helps decrease the operational and maintenance costs, and reduces the management’s efforts,” the research firm said.

    While many analyst market predictions do fall short, as long as low-code platforms reduce costs and help organizations move forward rapidly with their digitization efforts, low-code development is here to stay and will continue to grow.

    — George V. Hulme

  • The State of Low-Code Development

    The State of Low-Code Development

    As enterprises continue to play catch-up when it comes to meeting their internal demand for new software services and applications, more enterprises—but still, only a minority—are turning to low-code development platforms to try to fill the gap.

    Low-code development platform provider OutSystems released its sixth annual “State of Application Development Report.” The report is based on surveys conducted in March of 3,300 IT professionals.

    The report found that a sizable minority (41%) of respondents are already using low-code platforms, while another 10% stated they were about to start using a low-code development platform. For comparison, in the 2018 report, 34% of respondents said they were using low-code development platforms and 9% said they were about to start using these platforms. Clearly, interest in these platforms is rising, if not modestly.

    Low-code development platforms strive to make software development more accessible. They do so by removing traditional coding interfaces with graphical user interfaces. And they typically target development toward a specific functionality, whether that be web applications, business process automation, IoT and, quite often, databases. The low-code development platform market is expected to grow to $27.2 billion by 2022 from $4.3 billion in 2017, an annual growth rate of 44%.

    The demand for software has never been higher. According to the OutSystems report, 64% of IT professionals said they have an application development backlog. For 19% of respondents, that backlog is deeper than 10 apps. While 50% said their backlogs have remained the same, 39% report that their app backlogs have improved over the past year.

    The time to deliver web apps and mobile apps is mixed. The 2018 OutSystems report found that 54% of respondents took four months or less to deliver a web application. This year, 61% said it takes them four months or less to deliver a web application. Mobile app development has changed a little: 55% on average said they deliver apps in four months or less.

    According to OutSystems, enterprises using low-code development platforms are 12% more likely to report that their backlogs have improved year over year.

    Those findings echo similar surveys. For instance, a survey released earlier this month from low-code provider Appian found that nearly 80% of its respondents believe that using low-code can free developer time to work on higher-level projects. That survey also found 86% of IT developers agree that emerging technology is increasing the pressure on the IT organization.

    One thing is certain, the demand for software isn’t going to let up anytime soon. According to the OutSystems report, the number of applications respondents plan to deliver this year is 60% higher than last year. For those with more than 500 employees, 65% said they had plans to deliver 10 or more apps, 38% plan to build 25 or more apps and 15% said they plan to develop 100 or more apps this year.

    Despite the high demand for enterprise software, only 36% of organizations have larger development teams than they did a year ago. However, that’s likely not due for lack of trying to hire and retain development talent. The OutSystems survey found only 15% of respondents described developer recruitment as easy. “For many organizations, retention of developer talent appears to be an equally grave challenge,” according to the report.

    With conditions like that, it’s only reasonable to expect low-code development platform popularity to continue to rise.

    — George V. Hulme

  • Citizen Developer Movement Gains Steam

    Citizen Developer Movement Gains Steam

    It’s been about a year since we covered how the rise of the consumerization of IT had extended beyond cloud services and devices to application development and the advent of the Citizen Developer from rarity to mainstream. The momentum of citizen developers in the enterprise has only increased in the past year. And the move is proving to provide much needed faster time to market for enterprise apps.

    According to the “QuickBase annual State of Citizen Development Report,” a survey completed this summer of 153 North American enterprises that develop and use custom business applications, the need to rapidly develop new apps is one of the leading reasons why non-developers in business roles are rolling up their sleeves and developing some of the apps their companies need.

    As readers of devopsy.kinsta.cloud are aware, app backlogs are a big concern. Reportedly, many organizations have app backlogs that range from weeks to months to years. Rather than wait for an IT department that is struggling to meet—or even catch up with—app demand (largely fueled by the thirst for mobile apps), they are turning to low-code and no-code development platforms that enable anyone to develop without understanding a formal language.

    How do enterprises support citizen development? They do it mostly by providing employees a place to build apps in cloud-based, low-code platforms. Some of the highlights from the QuickBase report include:

    • Developing a custom application using traditional development methods requires more than two months on average for 67 percent and more than six months for 31 percent of application builders.
    • Citizen development platforms are seen as capable of developing 26 different custom applications for a variety of top use cases including asset management, project management, IT help desk, inventory management, contact management, workforce management, service management, compliance management, contract management and facilities management.
    • Organizations consider the top benefit of no-code citizen development to be the ability to maintain and update applications faster than the more than two months required by 35 percent of traditional developers.

    The acceleration of app development and the fact that citizen developers help to move app ideas from the bottom up in an organization are why many IT leaders say citizen development is a catalyst of the innovation enterprises need. As Michael Beckley, CTO of Appian relayed to associate Tony Bradley in his story, “Citizen Developers Can Benefit an Organization“: “The best-designed products have always been built with the needs of the user from the outset. Who better than citizen developers to design software that enables organizations to transform customer experiences, launch compelling new products and manage risk efficiently? Citizen developers are motivated by the opportunity to create a new reality, not merely accepting the workplace as they found it.

    “Citizen developers are most successful when supported by IT,” Beckley continued. “One critical area where IT can help is in promoting reuse and modularity in the applications and business processes that citizen developers build.”

    That’s the key to success, going forward, in my view: The organizations that succeed with citizen development will be those that wholeheartedly embrace the movement and cultivate it, with IT’s help and guidance.

    In the QuickBase survey, among the broad population of app developers surveyed, the majority reported being able to deliver their apps in less than a month. Compare that to traditional IT developers alone, 67 percent of whom reported it takes more than two months to build an app and 31 percent reported more than six months. This is probably why 80 percent of respondents said that development speed was one of the top reasons for embracing citizen developers: The QuickBase survey found that 42 percent of their users are able to build apps at twice the speed of traditional development.

    With results like that, it’s just a matter of time before every large organization embraces citizen developers to clear app backlogs and innovate more rapidly.

    — George V. Hulme