It’s a growing trend: more and more, business applications live outside of the firewall. Sure, some applications still live in-house. But, others have moved to the cloud. Still others were replaced with SaaS options.
What Does this Mean for Development?
Applications must provide a way to communicate and integrate with other applications. This is why we’ve seen such rapid growth in application programming interfaces (APIs)–a trend that will gain steam in the coming years.
In the past, business software focused on function over form. It wasn’t usually pretty, but it got the job done. But, a funny thing happened when mobile apps and cloud-based consumer software became popular. Users realized something: Software doesn’t have to be boring. It doesn’t have to be confusing.
The Result
Expectations have changed. Users expect simple interfaces from their enterprise apps.
As user expectations change, the user experience becomes critically important. Developers who don’t provide simple, intuitive interfaces will struggle with user adoption.
Developers need an ever-increasing, and ever-changing skillset.
An Increase in Development Tools
As development becomes more complex, software becomes more powerful. We’re seeing software that not only improves developer productivity, but also fills in the skills gaps.
This growth in development tools also creates another trend: More development has shifted to the business side. The increase in “code-free” development tools brings simple development tasks to the end users. Rather than rely on the IT department for everything, end users are now creating and managing their own applications or engaging teams of specialists to rapidly and cost-effectively create the “core-critical” applications.
And these are the same custom data-manipulation and reporting applications that play a growing and significant role in data-driven decisions. Are your custom apps easy to access, use and robust in the value they deliver? And are they integrated and secure?
New software must be developed with integration in mind. Software that can be integrated with existing systems via an accessible API and web services can ensure that the value of both the new and existing systems is maximized. Get on board and you are empowered to drive your success.