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Microsoft Aims PowerApps at Rapid, Elegant, Consumer-fast App Building

by Dann Anthony Maurno
Assistant Editor, MSDW

Mobile apps can't come fast enough for business, believes Microsoft; and so far, they aren't coming fast enough. So this week at Convergence 2015 EMEA, Microsoft introduced PowerApps, a new service aimed at "[empowering] employees to create the apps they need, connected to business systems in a secure way, and easily share their apps with coworkers."

PowerApps, which Microsoft officials say comes from the same team that has worked on the app building platform Project Siena in the past, is available in preview, and helps businesses create employee-facing apps of all kinds, from the simplest app - like a one-time employee survey - to long-lived, apps that connect to line-of-business systems and cloud services and run on any device.

Microsoft noted in a statement that consumer applications evolve rapidly, and employee expectations follow suit; but of course, a poorly-designed business application has far greater consequences to its user than a lousy game has for a consumer. Microsoft's Corporate Vice President, Application Platform Bill Staples in a blog post traces the "innovation gap" in enterprise to three other factors:

  1. Not enough skilled mobile developers. Gartner predicts that through 2017, the market demand for mobile app development services will grow at least five times faster than internal IT organization capacity to deliver them. There simply aren't enough skilled developers to keep up with demand.
  2. Business data proliferation.  With data stored in many systems (e.g., on premises systems and beyond the firewall to SaaS clouds), it is difficult to connect to and consume related data from within an app.
  3. IT agility and app sharing. Mobile app distribution ...

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About Dann Anthony Maurno

Dann Anthony Maurno is a seasoned business journalist who began his career as International Marketing Manager with Lilly Software, then moved on as a freelancer to write for such prestigious clients as CFO Magazine; Compliance Week;Manufacturing Business Technology; Decision Resources, Inc.; The Economist Intelligence Unit; and corporate clients such as Iron Mountain, Microsoft and SAP. He is the co-author of Thin Air: How Wireless Technology Supports Lean Initiatives(CRC/Productivity Press, 2010).

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