A New Year, A New Outlook on Application Development

A New Year - A New Outlook on Application Development


Expert Insights and Predictions for 2015


In 2014, businesses across the world saw an increase in consumer

expectations, leading to a power shift and a new consumer-centric

outlook. Couple this with a rise in digital technologies and new

disruptive companies and competition has never been so fierce.

Businesses are in a hurry to adapt and transform, often through

new applications that differentiate their services, enable faster

and more convenient customer engagements, and streamline

staff workflows. These applications are mostly new additions and

therefore require development, leaving IT with an alarming list of

projects, all of which are high priority.

This App Delivery Chasm, the struggle between business demand

and IT’s ability to deliver, continues to grow. Today, 71% of IT teams

are behind, unable to meet business demand.


Companies have already started to accept that new technology

and applications must be at the heart of their business innovation

plans. And with this recognition came the need for new

approaches and tools to help speed application delivery. In 2015,

many of these ideas will become mainstream, along with a few

new trends that we expect to take off.

This eBook offers perspectives from a variety of application

delivery experts, including both thought leaders and practitioners.

We wanted to share their predictions and advice for 2015. What

we found followed three themes.

1 Evolve from service provider to business enabler

Rethink your people and process strategy

Embrace the next-generation of cloud computing

2

3


Evolve from Service Providerto Business Enabler


Derek RoosCEO,Mendix

Rather than be disrupted by the next Uber, more businesses will

look to make app development a core competitive advantage in 2015.

To help the business innovate, though, IT must evolve from service

provider to business enabler.

This requires abandoning the traditional view of IT as a centralized

support function and instead, providing the business with tools,

frameworks and best practices to build apps themselves. In the

process, IT teams must revamp how they approach projects and

deliver solutions to the business.

Ultimately, it’s about enabling the speed and simplicity that’s crucial to

winning in the marketplace.

“

”

Abandon Traditional Views of IT


Michael KrigsmanCIO Advisor and Co-Founder of CxOTalk

Users want simpler, smaller, easier-to-use applications. Regardless

of how complex a business process might be, the technology user

experience must be friendly and intuitive. Delivering intuitive apps

places a burden on developers to bring forth the right features at each

point, as needed, in the app. For this reason, understanding how the

user works, and what the user wants to accomplish, becomes a key

development skill.

The ability to hold users prisoner is no longer an excuse for bad

software design and poor development practice. When technologists

get closer to the user, everyone wins.

Gone are the days in which a developer can toss any old software

to users and expect high adoption. In 2015, developers must gain a

sophisticated understanding of the business processes for which they

write software.

“

”

Gain a Deeper Business Understanding


Charles F. Schiappa Chief Information Officer, MassHousing

Customers, regulators and business partners will continue to place

more demand on our business lines. Internally, business managers

will seek ways to satisfy those demands while also improving their

products and processes. All this spells increased demand for IT to

deliver more.

In 2015, IT and business leaders must find ways to deliver more with

their resources – any tools that leverage IT and business talent to

create business value faster will be in high demand.

You are not winning when your customer is waiting.

“

”

Leverage IT and Business Talent


Rethink Your People and Process Strategy


In his blog post on November 13, 2014, Phil Murphy, VP, principal analyst serving

application development and delivery professionals at Forrester Research, shared

his thoughts regarding changes to expect in 2015. He said that IT will nead to

consolidate technology, change core processes, and adapt your staffing practices.

The past few years have heralded the age of the customer, where

the voice of customers is amplified by social media and enabled by

mobile applications - accelerating the pace of change for app dev &

delivery leaders to a relentless pace. If you’re hoping for a brief respite

in 2015, it’s time for rethink.

Read the full blog post.

“

”

Consolidate, Update, and Adapt

http://blogs.forrester.com/phil_murphy/14-11-13-2015_predictions_big_changes_in_store_for_app_dev_leaders


Wade SendallVP of IT,The Boston Globe

In 2015, business demand for new applications will continue to

exceed IT’s ability to deliver. We’re still being asked to do the same

thing: to deliver more with limited resources. To manage, we need to

work faster and more efficiently, and most importantly, we need to

deliver apps that help the business succeed.

Find a new path that helps your team deliver more and acquire the

right tools that help them succeed. There’s a new breed of rapid

developer that relies on modern tools to create apps faster.

To find the right talent, look for individuals who are more application

savvy than traditional programmer. These individuals are often

system analysts or equivalent. They have an aptitude for configuring

applications and can be trained to use a rapid development platform,

creating a new pool of development resources to help you meet

growing business demand.

“

”

Deliver More with Less


Rod WillmottFast Track Innovation Director,LV=Insurance

IT departments will have to manage many smaller portfolios of work

as opposed to a few large projects and the development needs to move

closer to the business. Legacy system restrictions will continue to be a

challenge and priority will move to providing easily re-useable interfaces

for other services rather than legacy developments to provide the

business and customer functionality.

Prepare for a world where services can interact easily and modernize

common services so that multiple business and customer facing

services that you create quickly can use them. Embrace experimentation

and ‘test & learn.’ Learn quickly through rapid experimentation rather

than long meetings and extensive strategy documents.

“

”

Adopt Rapid Experimentation


Embrace the Next-Generation of Cloud Computing


In October 2014, Gartner released a list predicting the top 10 strategic technology trends for 2015. This list tackles

a number of important initiatives, many of which tie back to digital innovation and the consumer-led business shift.

Beyond the reason for these trends, the core solutions all have one common theme – the Cloud.

Here’s what they had to say:

The convergence of cloud and mobile computing will continue to promote the growth of

centrally coordinated applications that can be delivered to any device.

In the near term, the focus for cloud/client will be on synchronizing content and application

state across multiple devices and addressing application portability across devices. Over time,

applications will evolve to support simultaneous use of multiple devices.

In the future, games and enterprise applications alike will use multiple screens and exploit

wearables and other devices to deliver an enhanced experience.

Read the full release and top 10 list here.

“

”

Focus on the Cloud

http://www.gartner.com/newsroom/id/2867917


Adrian Cockcroft Technology Fellow,Battery Ventures

We have moved from development taking months with the waterfall

development methodology, down to weeks with agile sprints, and to

hours with continuous delivery. One reason for the rapid adoption of

Docker is that it only requires developers to provision the differences

between builds, and Docker services can then be deployed without

rebooting.

Therefore, in a matter of seconds, developers can move an application

from the provisioning stage to testing and production. When

developers get ahold of a technology that moves as fast as they can

think, it is addictive. Development tooling and deployment processes

will be forced to adapt.

“

”

Develop at the Speed of Thought


On December 2, 2014, International Data Corporation (IDC) released their top ten predictions for worldwide

information and telecommunications technology in 2015. The release indicates that 2015 will be the year for

broadening adoption of the 3rd Platform. Coined by IDC in 2007, the 3rd Platform refers to the next generation of

software founded on cloud computing, Big Data, mobile devices and social media.

Within their predictions:

Cloud services will remain a hotbed of activity in 2015 with $118 billion in spending on the greater cloud

ecosystem. Look for heightened competition among Platform as a Service (PaaS) providers as competitors

engage in death match battles to attract developers and their apps and Software as a Service (SaaS)

players accelerate their adoption of PaaS and cloud marketplaces.

Read the release.

“

”

Be Ready for the 3rd Platform

http://www.idc.com/getdoc.jsp?containerId=prUS25285614


Johan den HaanCTO,Mendix

Today, abstraction and automation at the PaaS layer have made

application deployment a one-command experience. However, PaaS

only marginally improves an existing paradigm—coding. PaaS makes

it easy to deploy code once it’s been written, but doesn’t address the

core issue: how to make it radically easier to build applications in the

first place.

Rapid Application Delivery (RAD) PaaS takes a major leap forward by

adding abstraction and automation to the app development process.

The true value comes from bringing together the new world of

deployment with a new way of building apps – a visual, model-driven

development technology that abstracts away from programming code.

In 2015, we’ll see this next layer in cloud innovation move into the

mainstream and fundamentally transform enterprise app delivery.

“

”

Think Rapid All the Way


Application development needs to become faster, cheaper, and

easier to use. In addition, the platform itself must make it easier to

develop great user interfaces that take advantage of devices, mobile,

and analytics.

Platforms will gain the intelligence needed to ensure that an app is

optimized for mobile, making life easier for the developer and better

for users.

“

”

Michael KrigsmanCIO Advisor and Co-Founder of CxOTalk

Find a More Intelligent Platform


As competition mounts and businesses set more demanding

goals to get ahead, something must change. Technology is at the

heart of innovation, but many organizations struggle to innovate

within their current models.

As we move into 2015, remember that IT must be an enabler

of business success. But you need to rethink your teams and

processes in order to focus your efforts in the right places and

drive the right outcomes. Look out for high priority projects, and

find ways to deliver them faster than ever before.

Good luck (and Happy New Year)!


Mendix is the app platform company for the enterprise. We enable companies to build, integrate and deploy web and mobile

applications faster and with better results, effectively driving ROI in days not months. Learn more, join our user community and get

started for free at now.mendix.com.

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