For the fourth year in a row, Microsoft Power Platform has been named a Leader in the 2023 Gartner Magic Quadrant for Enterprise Low-Code Application Platforms (LCAP). With more than 7 million active developers on the Power Platform currently, Gartner estimates that Microsoft Power Apps maintains the largest user base of the Low-Code Application Platforms primarily due to the high number of enterprise users of Microsoft 365 and Dynamics CRM which offer partial entitlements to the Power Platform.

What is an LCAP?

An Enterprise Low-Code Application Platform is an application platform that is used to rapidly develop and deploy custom applications by minimizing the coding needed in traditional development environments. Low-code development platforms trace their roots back to fourth-generation programming language and the rapid application development tools of the 1990s and early 2000s.  Today, there are a number of Low Code Application Platforms, of which 17 are reviewed in the 2023 Gartner Magic Quadrant.  In addition to Microsoft Power Platform, Mendix, OutSystems, Salesforce, and ServiceNow are also leaders in this space. Gartner also forecasts that the Low-Code Platform technologies market will grow by 20% in 2023, to a total of $26.9 billion.

Why Low Code?

As Charles LaManna, Corporate VP of Business Applications and Platform at Microsoft stated at the 2020 Microsoft Ignite Conference, “500 million new apps will be built in the next five years – more than all apps built in the last 40 years. With a 5x faster demand for mobile apps than IT departments can deliver.” With the demand for apps far outpacing the number of available developers and the ability to rapidly create applications using traditional technologies, it’s clear there is an App Gap. Low Code Application Platforms, like Power Platform, help to fill the gaps in small, medium, and enterprise organizations by equipping both the professional developer and citizen developer representing the business with the tools to address demands for automation.

Why Power Platform?

The Microsoft Power Platform is a complete, well-thought-out portfolio of tools that can be used alone and together. Built on Azure with the same enterprise-grade security and administrative controls you expect in the Microsoft Cloud, Power Platform offers a wide array of tools to connect to hundreds of business applications, Microsoft cloud services, and other data sources with an extensive library of connectors.  At Compass365, we’ve been delivering Microsoft Business Applications – forms & workflow automation, integrations, and custom applications – for more than 17 years and have used a variety of tools over time. Since the advent of Power Platform in 2017/2018, we’ve seen a dramatic demand for Power Apps and currently, it is the Low-Code/Pro-Code platform of choice for more than 90% of our enterprise customers.

The Power Platform is evolving and over the past few years, Microsoft has rolled out tools and features to support the stringent security and governance requirements of enterprise organizations. This has been of key importance to our clients who want to empower their employees to build solutions but also want to ensure the governance and support of those apps are in place.  Some of these features include Managed Environments, ALM, Co-Authoring, and Power Platform Center of Excellence, all created to enable the organization to innovate, automate and support hundreds and thousands of low-code and pro-code applications within an organization.

Get expert help with the Power Platform

If you are new to the low-code/pro-code approach using the Power Platform and would like assistance, reach out at any time to discuss Compass365’s Power Platform Consulting Services  We are happy to help. Contact us to arrange a complimentary consultation.

Compass365, a Microsoft Gold Partner, delivers SharePoint, Microsoft Teams, and Power Platform solutions that help IT, and Business leaders improve the way their organizations operate and how their employees work.