Microsoft has unveiled PowerApps, a new template-driven application development platform targeted toward business users that leverages the familiarity of Office. Here are the key details from an official blog post on the launch:
PowerApps is an enterprise service for innovators everywhere to connect, create and share business apps with your team on any device in minutes.
For employees,
Quickly create apps that work on any device using a Microsoft Office-like experience, templates to get started quickly and a visual designer to automate workflows.
Use built-in connections, or ones built by your company, to connect PowerApps to cloud services such as Office 365, Dynamics CRM, Salesforce, Dropbox and OneDrive and on-premises systems including SharePoint, SQL Server, Oracle databases, SAP and more.
Share PowerApps like documents. It’s as simple as typing an email address and your coworkers can take advantage of an app you created.
For developers and IT professionals,
PowerApps includes Azure App Service for employee-facing apps, so native web and mobile apps get into employee hands faster than ever.
Build additional data connections and APIs to any existing business systems, thus empowering any users in your organization to create the apps they need.
Data security and privacy controls are respected by PowerApps, so you can manage data access and maintain corporate policies.
PowerApps, which is now in an early-access stage—you can sign up here—follows the likes of Salesforce's Lightning App Builder, which takes a similar, component and template-driven approach.
The idea is for PowerApps to augment the functionality packaged SaaS applications can deliver, while giving business users control over what types of apps need to be built, and when.
A lack of skilled mobile developers, rapidly proliferating business data and the "inherent friction" centralized IT creates in getting new applications to users' mobile devices have kept business apps lagging behind "consumer app scenarios in terms of richness and ubiquity," the blog post adds.
PowerApps: The Counterpoint
"Microsoft’s mission is to reinvent productivity," says Constellation Research VP and principal analyst Alan Lepofsky. "They have been doing that by expanding the Office 365 portfolio with new applications like Delve, Sway and Planner."
"Citizen developer" platforms like PowerApps have an advantage since they're for people who are experts in business processes, Lepofsky adds. "The problem is, very few LoB professionals have experience with the UI/UX design that is required to make a good application," he says. In addition, there's some question of where PowerApps' goals may overlap with Project GigJam, a productivity and collaboration tool announced earlier this year, Lepofsky says.
PowerApps drives at a long-standing problem in enterprise IT, namely what gets lost in translation between business users "and the technical resources creating, operating and maintaining applications," says Constellation Research VP and principal analyst Holger Mueller. "It is good to see more and more offerings come to market that enable them to get into the driver seat. End users will make mistakes in the first generations of these applications, but ultimately learn how to be successful with them. IT leaders want to embrace end user frameworks that allow room for creativity, ensure success and keep good IT practices in place."
