Most software and funding announcements seem to be including some reference to “low code” platforms or functionality. The frequent usage of this trendy buzzword implies we are entering a new era of software development.

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A few examples of the latest low code announcements

Amazon launched its no-code tool “Honeycode” last month. Customers try to solve for the static nature of spreadsheets by emailing them back and forth, but all of the emailing just compounds the inefficiency because email is slow, doesn’t scale, and introduces versioning and data syncing errors. As a result, people often prefer having custom applications built, but the demand for custom programming often outstrips developer capacity, creating a situation where teams either need to wait for developers to free up or have to hire expensive consultants to build applications.

Germany-based startup Wandelbots raised $30 million to help it speed the market debut of its “TracePen”, a hand-held, code-free device that allows human operators to quickly and easily demonstrate desired behavior for industrial robots to mimic. Programming robots to perform specific tasks typically requires massive amounts of code, as well as programmers with very specific, in-demand skill sets to accomplish. Wandelbots wants to make it as easy as simply showing a robot what it is you want it to do, and then showing it a different set of behaviors should you need to reprogram it to accomplish a new task or fill in for a different part of the assembly line.

Microsoft extended their Power-product line by adding “Power Virtual Agents” which is very much focused on the same type of low code, accessible to anybody, no matter whether they’re a business user or business analyst or professional developer, to go build a conversational agent that’s AI-driven and can actually solve problems for your employees, for your customers, for your partners, in a very natural way.

No matter what sector, many multinational companies acknowledge the important shift in software development. But why?

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The average tech stack has never been more complex

Most companies plan to perfectly integrate all their applications, polish every front-end, and automate their “efficient” internal and external processes. But this is far from a reality.

Development teams spend most of their time fighting fires such as security, bugs, and audits. Maintaining these fires cost a lot of time, which means there is less time for innovation and optimization. Not to think of the technical debt these short-term fixes bring.

A solution could be to hire new developers. Yet the demand for technical talent far outpaces supply. A logical response from employees is to solve their problems with their own third-party tools. It is therefore logical that the average enterprise supports 1200 cloud-based applications. With a lack of internal support, employees bring in external IT consultants, which has led to a comeback of expensive custom software.

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Driving business growth from within

Low code enables non-technical employees to build their own solutions through one centralized platform. The need for extra developers will vanish, employees can automate and optimize their own simple processes, the technical developers can spend their time on more complex projects and the company saves a lot of time and money on external custom solutions.

For that reason, it makes sense that the world’s biggest companies use low code and that multinational software companies join in on the new era of software development.

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