Microsoft PowerApps: Applications achieve new scales of use, affordability, and efficiency

Supports to business in the form of applications are changing rapidly.  Work is increasingly performed, processed, shared, and stored on/through mobile devices:  Laptops, tablets, and phones.  This usurpation of desktop computers with their associated processing, and their dependency on a measure of centralized fileservers, is no less fundamental than the shift to distributed processing from mainframe computers and their associated dumb-terminals decades ago.

Still, the majority of applications today and their development remain a more cumbersome and expensive proposition than is necessary.  Most applications rely on premise-based PCs.  At the same time, they’re less than optimal for the mobile space:  Screen layouts display poorly and don’t adjust for the type of device making use of the app; the engendered processing and data does not integrate well – or at all – with other services and resources; and perhaps critical apps are not available (yet) for specific devices.

This all presents a large and growing liability for the modern organization.  Business data increasingly spans many systems, and goes beyond the physical organization in repositories that are beyond the firewall – existing in many cases in SaaS/PaaS systems in the Cloud.

As well (or “as bad” if you prefer), access to apps is controlled via app stores and mobile management policies governed by IT, business, and likely both.  Granting new access to apps, data, and the making of necessary changes to business apps is not exactly an efficient process.  Getting apps to employees’ devices – that is, getting the right apps to the right employee’s device (or the right group of employees’ devices) – remains a sub-optimal process in most organizations. 

But – it needn’t be.

Today, a qualified Microsoft Solutions Partner can create apps rapidly and inexpensively, making quick distribution, for satisfaction of evolving business needs.  Such a vendor can make effective use of PowerApps to wield templates and visual designers, to automate workflows in building, testing, and distributing apps in service to business:  Efficiently; affordably; and with tight business fit.

At the same time, they will connect your apps to Cloud services such as Office365, SalesForce, Dropbox, CRM, OneDrive, etc.  Further, they can quickly connect you to any premise-based systems - SQL Server, Oracle dbs, SharePoint, SAP, and so on.

PowerApps includes a Cloud platform, Azure App Service, for building web and mobile apps that can connect to data anywhere - whether that data resides in the Cloud or on-premises.  PowerApps also makes building additional data connections and Application Program Interfaces (APIs) for existing business systems easy and rapid.  As importantly, PowerApps respects controls for security and privacy.  Corporate policies and access remain within the organization’s control.

With a qualified vendor, PowerApps will quicken the build and distribution of your apps considerably.  And, it moves what typically only ran on-premises, with PCs, out to The Cloud, with solid optimization for mobile.  Disparate data-stores with enhancing content can be leveraged through efficient access with the associated optimization for mobile use.