Power Platform & Azure enable developers to build apps faster than ever
At Build this year, I’m excited to announce investments for professional developers on our Power Platform. The Power Platform is a low code platform that enables organizations to analyze data, act on it through applications, and automate business processes. It allows everyone, from the professional developer to the frontline worker, to participate in driving better business outcomes by building apps.
The Power Platform is composed of Power BI, PowerApps, and Microsoft Flow. It includes the Common Data Service, an enterprise-grade datastore, and access to a wide variety of connectors. Bolstering all of this is the Power Platform’s native integration with the Azure ecosystem.
We’re announcing three areas of updates and investment for the Power Platform:
- Boosting productivity for pro developers: Professional developers can now build responsive, reusable components using our new PowerApps Component Framework (PCF). Components can be built using our new PowerApps Component Framework command line interface offering a complete JavaScript or TypeScript developer experience. Later this summer we plan to further enrich the developer experiences by offering new Visual Studio extensions. Also, developers can now automatically and easily connect to Azure resources from inside of PowerApps and Microsoft Flow.
- Rich application lifecycle management: Solution support for canvas apps and flows is generally available, and enables continuous integration and deployment of PowerApps projects. Additionally, the new Power Platform Checkers make it possible to build high quality apps faster than ever before. Go to the Microsoft PowerApps blog and Microsoft Flow blog to learn more.
- A low-code approach to blockchain with Power Platform: Low-code blockchain development is here, enabling anyone to become a blockchain developer. Our new Smart Contract templates and connectors to blockchain databases can help you get started easily. Visit the Microsoft Azure blog to learn more.
Why do developers use the Power Platform?
The Power Platform helps professional developers supercharge their app productivity and tackle a growing set of work requests with efficiency and ease. They can then focus on more complex capabilities through high value work such as building Azure services; API Management, Functions, Kubernetes, and Azure Cognitive Services.
Organizations and developers are using the Power Platform and Azure to tackle a growing set of work requests with ease and the power of the cloud.
Some examples of impressive developers on the Power Platform include a Business Systems Development Manager at a major global airline who is modernizing maintenance operations and customer service processes in partnership with their DevOps team, a Technical Solution Expert at a vehicle glass repair provider who is digitizing processes and increasing productivity with self-developed apps, and a Cloud Services Manager for a large beverage distributor who is transforming in-store merchandising and auditing to achieve targeted business goals.
In addition to professional developers, citizen developers use the Power Platform to create custom line of business apps to solve their own business needs. This further alleviates the app debt on the professional developers in the organization fostering a new kind of collaboration and co-development model. IT can rest assured that they can maintain oversight, security, and governance of these apps. If they become more sophisticated and gain traction, professional developers can easily take over and extend with high value services from Azure.
Citizen and pro devs alike, people using the Power Platform share a common passion for quickly delivering value to their organizations. Learn how some of those developers are transforming their organizations.
Also, at Build, we’ll be highlighting ways we’re enhancing opportunity for ISV and developer partners in the Microsoft Business Applications ecosystem. This year, we’re introducing new monetization capabilities and partner investments in Microsoft’s cloud marketplaces – AppSource and Azure Marketplace. These will take the form of new SaaS transaction capabilities in our cloud marketplace, and a newly expanded incentive model for ISV and Channel partners.
We’re delighted to have an exciting slate of updates to talk about at Build this year. Please join us during Scott Guthrie’s keynote to learn more about the Power Platform on Monday May 6, look for our sessions, and come check out our booth.
