Chapter 7: The Ultimate of SAAS - Low-code and no-code will eventually eat up the entire software outsourcing market (free reading)
May 2022, Microsoft Worldwide Developers Conference. One focus is its low-code and no-code products.
Power Pages, Power Apps and more.
If you are interested, you can check out its website:Power Platform
Or this video on its website:
Low-code and no-code, I've been following it for years. At first, it was only used to build pages and APPs online and visually. Later, this concept continued to expand. Nowadays, the concepts of low-code and no-code have been used as a way of underlying construction and visual construction of pages, applications, processes, data analysis, etc.
All low-code and no-code products are designed to reduce development costs.
Of course, so far, low-code and no-code are more mature in building pages and APPs. In fact, most of them are not particularly flexible and only implement some common functions and relatively simple style customization.
In 2021, I developed a relatively simple low-code platform myself, mainly used for building pages online (similar to Power Pages). The goal is to reduce the development and trial and error costs of an information, community, and e-commerce Internet product 90%. Of course, so far, this goal has not been achieved.
For low code, there will be two major trends in the future:
Low-code and no-code will eventually eat up the entire software outsourcing market.
Low-code and no-code will eventually change the software development model.
1. Low-code and no-code will eventually eat up the entire software outsourcing market
Most software outsourcing is based on some very common and mature systems. These can be delivered to customers for their own use and creation as low-code and no-code SAAS.
Therefore, in the future, the gradual maturity of low-code and no-code will make the entire software outsourcing market significantly reduced or even disappear.
Take Microsoft's Power Platform as an example.
Power Pages build websites with low-code and no-code.
Power Apps uses low-code and no-code to build apps.
Power BI builds data analytics with low-code and no-code.
Power Autometa builds processes with low-code and no-code.
The four directions have basically covered a large area of the software outsourcing market. The final price is much cheaper than outsourcing.
In theory, low-code and no-code will definitely cover all development areas, such as chatbots and so on.
Therefore, it can also be said that one of the purposes of the emergence of low-code and no-code is to eat up the entire software outsourcing market.
2. Low-code and no-code will eventually change the software development model
Building applications based on low-code and no-code, building SAAS services, building apps, websites, processes, AI applications, etc. will be the mainstream methods in the future.
In fact, low-code and no-code themselves are also a kind of SAAS.
Compared with traditional development methods, the advantages of low-code development methods are obvious.
1. Reduce development costs and development time by more than half
Compared with traditional development methods, low-code and no-code development methods are fatal temptations for any enterprise.
2. Ignore the development environment and operating environment
Friends who have done development know that setting up the development environment and operating environment is very troublesome.
Low-code and no-code allow developers to ignore these things and focus on the development of the product itself.
3. Visually build pages and processes
Let people with many coding abilities also build websites, apps, etc.
Let people with coding skills do it faster and better.
4. Mature components and cloud service integration
To make a product, more and more you need to rely on various third-party components and cloud services. Many of these are actually immature and have mixed results. Low-code and no-code often integrate or provide many mature components and cloud services themselves, which will greatly expand a developer's capabilities and save a lot of time.
Therefore, low-code and no-code will completely change the way we develop. Let us focus more time, energy and cost on products and users.
3. Are there any opportunities to make money when competing with giants?
In recent years, both domestic and foreign companies, whether small and medium-sized companies or world giants, are doing low-code and no-code. Even I, a personal developer, couldn't help but make one.
The prospects and market for low-code and no-code are evident.
The question is, giants all over the world are pursuing low-code and no-code, do others still have a chance?
I have asked myself this question repeatedly.
I think there are not only some, but many.
Low-code and no-code, this market, or in other words, this track, is too wide. Rather than saying that low-code and no-code are a product, it is better to say that low-code and no-code are a way and a concept.
1. Each low-code and no-code product can only have one application direction.
For example, it is one direction for making a website, one direction for making an APP, and one direction for making a process. . . . . .
On the one hand, in addition to the current directions, new directions will continue to emerge.
On the other hand, a large number of subdivisions can be made in each direction. Each segmentation direction can have a user group. If it better matches the needs of this user group, it can snatch this user group away.
2. Users’ ability levels are different
Take Microsoft's Power Platform as an example. Even if those who can use it do not have coding skills, they must have professional knowledge and abilities in products, design, etc.
At least, nine out of ten people in China who are transitioning from traditional industries to the Internet will not be able to play with this thing.
This is a question of the user's ability level. To achieve the same results and face people with different ability levels, there is a natural need for differentiated products.