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Low-Code App Development: A Cure for the App Developer Shortage

By 2020, 70% of enterprise mobile apps will be developed without IT involvement. How? With low-code app development tools. Here’s why…

low-code development platforms

By 2020, 70% of enterprise mobile apps will be developed without IT involvement. How? With low-code app development tools.

What’s the best job in America? Being a mobile app developer, says a report from CNN Money, because of the profession’s high salaries and bright future:  an average salary in the six figures and a 19% growth rate over the next ten years. That’s great for app developers, but not as great for businesses looking to hire them. High salaries mean app development pros are in high demand. Of course, that’s nothing new. It’s long been known there’s an app developer shortage.

That shortage means it’s tough for IT to keep up with businesses’ demand for apps. In its report, “5 Scenarios for Low Code Choices,” Forrester notes, “Most tech management organizations already have more demand for business apps than they can handle; how can businesses expand their app delivery capacity to meet this exploding demand, which includes new and unfamiliar technologies?”

The answer: A low code app development tool. These tools let developers build mobile apps fast with little hand-coding and custom work, using simple-to-use visual tools. They also allow for custom coding when required. Low-code app development tools can help app developers write apps more quickly and efficiently, meaning companies can get by with fewer staff.

Low-code App Development: Finding New App Developers in the Enterprise

Organizations are decreasing the app backlog by enabling a wide range of employees — often in surprising areas of the business — become mobile app developers by adopting low-code app development. Low-code app development tools can also be used by so-called “citizen developers,” domain experts and line-of-business staff who have business experience but not a development background. Citizen developers may be the future of mobile development. Gartner analyst Jason Wong told SearchMobileComputing that “by 2020, 70% of enterprise mobile apps will be developed without IT involvement.”

Get our new white paper: "The Democratization of App Development" and read how to empower citizen developers at your organization.

“The Democratization of App Development” white paper explores how companies are empowering citizen developers with low-code app development.

We recently published a white paper on the rise of citizen development – made possible by low-code development: “Citizen Development: The Democratization of Mobile and Web App Development.” The white paper details the rise of low-code development in organizations, and how it’s speed and simplicity allows business to churn out more business apps than ever before, by empowering business analysts and line of business users to build mobile apps.

Need help evaluating a low-code app development solution?  Read a guest blog on one developer’s low-code evaluation journey, how he tested low-code app development tools and what he discovered.

A Look at One Low Code App Development Platform: Alpha Anywhere

Alpha Anywhere is a particularly powerful low code app development platform, as highlighted in the Forrester report “Vendor Landscape: The Fractured, Fertile Terrain Of Low-Code Application Platforms.” The report lauded Alpha Anywhere’s low-code, rapid mobile application development and deployment environment for its “strong” mobile forms technology.

Start Software’s director and principal consultant Robin Bennett calls Alpha Anywhere low-code app development “a developer’s best friend.”

Start Software’s director and principal consultant Robin Bennett calls Alpha Anywhere low-code app development “a developer’s best friend.”

But you don’t need to just take our word for it, or Forrester’s, either. Start Software’s director and principal consultant Robin Bennett calls Alpha Anywhere low-code app development “a developer’s best friend.”  Here are the six reasons he lauds it so highly:

  1. Alpha Anywhere does the boring stuff and does it really well
  2. You can build prototypes incredibly quickly
  3. Nothing is hidden, everything is accessible
  4. Hard stuff becomes easy
  5. Debugging is easy, clever, and flexible
  6. Deployment is genius

He concludes: “It is the most productive and most satisfying multi-platform environment I’ve ever worked in.”

Further Reading

Need help evaluating a low-code app development solution?  Read a guest blog on one developer’s low-code evaluation journey, how he tested development tools and what he discovered.

Watch this video on Alpha Anywhere’s  Low-Code App Development Platform for Building Mobile and Web Apps or read a detailed look at Alpha Anywhere’s low-code app development architecture.

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About Author

Amy Groden-Morrison
Amy Groden-Morrison

Amy Groden-Morrison has served more than 15 years in marketing communications leadership roles at companies such as TIBCO Software, RSA Security and Ziff-Davis. Most recently she was responsible for developing marketing programs that helped achieve 30%+ annual growth rate for analytics products at a $1Bil, NASDAQ-listed business integration Software Company. Her past accomplishments include establishing the first co-branded technology program with CNN, launching an events company on the NYSE, rebranding a NASDAQ-listed company amid a crisis, and positioning and marketing a Boston-area startup for successful acquisition. Amy currently serves as a Healthbox Accelerator Program Mentor, Marketing Committee Lead for the MIT Enterprise Forum of Cambridge Launch Smart Clinics, and on the organizing team for Boston TechJam. She holds an MBA from Northeastern University.

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The Alpha platform is the only unified mobile and web app development and deployment environment with distinct “no-code” and “low-code” components. Using the Alpha TransForm no-code product, business users and developers can take full advantage of all the capabilities of the smartphone to turn any form into a mobile app in minutes, and power users can add advanced app functionality with Alpha TransForm's built-in programming language. IT developers can use the Alpha Anywhere low-code environment to develop complex web or mobile business apps from scratch, integrate data with existing systems of record and workflows (including data collected via Alpha TransForm), and add additional security or authentication requirements to protect corporate data.

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