Among trends in the technology industry, there is clearly a growing interest for large tech players in the evolving low-code/no-code space.

In January, Google announced that it would buy AppSheet, a no-code mobile application building platform, for $17 million. Microsoft Corp. has already developed its own no-code Power Platform for developers, and one of its executives has indicated that 450 million of the next 500 million new apps to be built will be created with a low-code tool. And in June, Amazon Web Services entered the low-code software development arena with the launch of Amazon Honeycode.

One company — OutSystems Inc. — has been pioneering the development of low-code and no-code tools for nearly two decades. As the need for enterprises to build software more quickly has grown and the talent pool of sophisticated programming skills has remained limited, the low-code/no-code  movement has accelerated and OutSystems will be highlighting its contribution to the space during the livestreamed NextStep 2020 virtual event on September 15 and 16.

“The idea that we had initially was very much the one that has become truth; we’re just about 14 years ahead of the market,” said Paulo Rosado, founder and chief executive officer of OutSystems, during an April interview with theCUBE, SiliconANGLE Media’s livestreaming studio. “Companies increasingly want to build more software because they want to be differentiated, they want to compete, but the talent available and the speed to build these pieces of software are becoming more challenging. We help a lot in doing that.”

TheCUBE will be broadcasting interviews on September 15 and 16 with OutSystems executives and key industry leaders during the Next Step 2020 event. Discussion topics include the latest product news, how artificial intelligence is facilitating OutSystems technology to automate aspects of digital transformation at scale, market trends, and the impact of low-code/no-code on global information technology operations. (* Disclosure below.) 

Rise of citizen developers

Events of 2020 have given the low-code/no-code movement a turbo boost. The global pandemic forced people in a wide cross section of professions to use technology exclusively from home, which has resulted in the growth of citizen developers, users without a great deal of software development training who must now build tools necessary for doing their jobs.

There are myriad ways that citizens have taken advantage of these new tools. Teachers, suddenly forced to instruct students virtually, have quickly built software to take class attendance in online environments. A top healthcare provider in the U.S. built an app in less than a day so that doctors could submit patients affected by COVID-19 for clinical trial treatments using a new drug.

“It really is about racing with the machines,” said Stu Miniman, Wikibon analyst and host of theCUBE. “I’ve seen things that said: ‘Oh, computer programmers, you’re the next things that are going to be replaced by robots.’ What we know is that really it is the combination of people plus this software that is going to supercharge things going forward.”

Impact on the enterprise

In addition to the “democratization of coding,” the movement has also impacted the enterprise world as well. A recent Harvard Business School survey of 450 global executives found that a majority saw enterprise innovation and idea generation as the primary benefits of low-code development. The same report found that half the executives embraced the distributed, rapid-cycle innovation that low-code offered as a key enabler for improved business performance.

OutSystems has seen this dynamic within its customer base, according to Rosado, who cited an example of a large oil and gas terminal management company that needed to build a full enterprise resource planning platform to manage tanker logistics and the deployment of petroleum.

“They were looking at a four-to-six-year timeframe to build this, and they did it in seven months,” said Rosado during his interview with theCUBE. “It’s a very complex business. These kinds of compressions of time for large systems are a huge differentiator.”

The influence of low-code and no-code in both the rise of citizen developers and growing engagement with enterprise customers will inevitably be fueled by the ability to make software development tools simpler and easier to use. That will take automation, and OutSystems recently listed AI for assisted development and AI for applications as the top two trends in software development for the second half of 2020.

OutSystems has been positioning its portfolio to leverage intelligent tool technology for well over a year. In June 2019, the company launched new AI capabilities to accelerate the development of smart applications and followed that up with embedded AI and machine learning in its software as part of a release in November.

“It’s almost as if the developer, as they are creating functional requirements, gets augmented with an extra brain,” Rosado said. “It’s time for AI to be used in the software development cycle. It really works, and its time is now.”

Livestream of OutSystems NextStep 2020

OutSystems NextStep 2020 is a livestream event with additional interviews to be broadcast on theCUBE. You can register for free here to access the live coverage. You can also watch it on demand on theCUBE’s dedicated page and YouTube channel. (* Disclosure below.)

How to watch theCUBE interviews

We offer you various ways to watch the live coverage of the OutSystems NextStep 2020 digital event, including theCUBE’s dedicated website and YouTube channel. You can also get all the coverage from this year’s events on SiliconANGLE.

TheCUBE Insights podcast

SiliconANGLE also has podcasts available of archived interview sessions, available on iTunes, Stitcher, and Spotify, which you can enjoy while on the go.

Guests who will be interviewed on theCUBE during the OutSystems NextStep 2020 digital event

Guests who will be interviewed on theCUBE during the OutSystems NextStep 2020 digital event include OutSystems’ Paulo Rosao, CEO; Antonio Alegria, head of AI; Jennifer Lopez, senior director of community and advocacy; and Goncalo Gaiolas, vice president of product.

Also appearing are Bruce Buttles, digital channels director at Humana, and Mihai Strusievici, vice president of global IT at Colliers International.

(* Disclosure: TheCUBE is a paid media partner for the OutSystems NextStep 2020 digital event. Neither OutSystems Software, the sponsor for theCUBE’s event coverage, nor other sponsors have editorial control over content on theCUBE or SiliconANGLE.)

Photo: OutSystems Inc.