Industry executives and experts share their predictions for 2019. Read them in this 11th annual VMblog.com series exclusive.
Contributed by Vijay Pullur, CEO of WaveMaker
The Continued Evolution and Revolution of Low-Code
Rapid
Application Development (RAD) or low-code development is a dynamic approach to
creating applications that minimizes hand-coding to increase developer productivity.
At first, low-code technology grew out of the needs of citizen developers with
little coding knowledge to create basic applications using intuitive "out of
the box" features - but over time, the technology has matured drastically to
suit the nuanced and complex needs of IT professionals.
Today's
low-code technology features advanced open-standards-based approaches,
comprehensive API capabilities, enterprise-grade security measures, and more to
help developers execute on sophisticated digital transformation and
modernization projects efficiently. However, the evolution of low-code
technology is far from over. In fact, I predict that the low-code space will
continue to grow in the following ways in the year ahead:
1. Increased usage - Low-code
technology enables a higher degree of nuanced coding intermixed with intuitive visual
development, allowing developers to efficiently create high-quality and specific
enterprise-grade applications. As more and more enterprise IT teams recognize
the ways in which this type of development process can free up internal
resource constraints, low-code technology will become the de-facto productivity
platform for professional developers.
2. Enhanced enterprise-grade
applications - In 2019, professional developers will continue to push the
boundaries of RAD as they bring best practices and relevant app development,
deployment, and DevOps experience into every stage of the enterprise
application development lifecycle. These enhancements will undoubtedly span a
range of capabilities, including cloud deployment, real-time integration, and
increased developer collaboration across and within teams.
3. Central hub for app development via integrations - With
increasing API adoption and service consumption, low-code platforms will become
even more of a central hub for application development. The current model of
enabling streamlined integrations to external services will open the door to an
even wider range of use cases - including RPA, BPM, SaaS IoT, AI, and analytics
integrations.
4. Emphasized digital experiences - The
customer/user experience will only grow more important as enterprises go
head-to-head in a progressively competitive digital environment. As a result,
RAD technology will increasingly cater toward building highly user-centric
digital experiences with clear customer touchpoints where feedback can be provided
quickly and easily from any device, channel, or location.
5. Longer-lived applications - The
flexibility of low-code technology will contribute to a future in which most
mainstream business applications are built to be long-lived and capable of adjusting
and scaling alongside changing business objectives. Previously, factors like
cumbersome integration approaches would result in the creation of "locked in"
applications incapable of change over time - which is both inefficient and
costly.
There's no question that low-code technology will continue to be a
high-impact tool for CIOs and developers looking to tackle big enterprise IT
projects more efficiently and flexibly in 2019 - and beyond.
##
About the Author
Vijay Pullur, CEO of WaveMaker
Vijay has long been at the forefront of harnessing emerging
technologies, from web infrastructure and cloud to social media and mobile,
making him a highly respected serial entrepreneur with a successful two-decade
track record. As co-founder of Pramati Technologies, a leading software product
company and technology investor, Vijay was privileged to help accelerate
India's technology revolution in the 1990s, working to develop the IT
industry's first independently developed application server compatible with the
Java 2 Platform - and bringing it to market before Oracle, IBM, and BEA. Since
then, Pramati has incubated and spun-off multiple businesses, including
WaveMaker, a low-code Rapid Application Development software platform
revolutionizing how enterprises develop, deliver, and modernize applications.
WaveMaker leverages the latest trends and technologies in low-code, such as
multi-device auto-responsive interfaces and componentized app assembly, Docker
for app-optimized container deployment on private infrastructures, and APIs and
Microservices Architecture (MSA), for scalable integration. As CEO of
WaveMaker, Vijay seeks to give enterprises the tools needed to improve business
agility, foster innovation, efficiently execute on digital transformations, and
remain competitive in their industries. Vijay thrives on mentoring other
entrepreneurs, and co-developed the innovative, autonomous model for "alternative
entrepreneurship" at Pramati, which also hosts Infinity, an annual
innovation challenge. Nurturing exceptional talent is one of company's
fundamental beliefs that Vijay believes has been essential to the company's
long-term success in creating competitive global products.