January 31, 2023 • 26 mins
Holger Mueller of Constellation Research explains how ERP vendors' low-code/no-code development tools offer considerable advantages to both professional developers, as well as business users with no technical background.
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Dave Essex (00:02):
It's the ERP con fab. I'm David Essex industry
editor as search ERP. vendorshave been introducing low code,
no code development tools thatthey claim will allow non
technical business users towrite enterprise level software.
But how good are these tools?And who really uses them the
most? Today's guest, HolgerMueller, Vice President and
(00:25):
Principal Analyst atConstellation Research, has
covered this market extensivelyfor his firm shortlist reports.
And previously worked insoftware development and SAP and
Oracle, Holger, the major ERPvendors, and actually some of
the smaller ones to have beenadding these low code, no code
tools for a good couple years,maybe a little longer. And it's
(00:49):
been a real trend SAP recentlyintroduced build, it's really
seems to be an effort among ERPvendors to provide this
capability. Why do you thinkthey've been adding these and
making such a big deal out ofthem in the last couple of
years?
Unknown (01:04):
Yeah, that's a great observation, David. So the
background to this is somethingI've seen since a number of
years coming from theapplication space, having spent
20 years at SAP and Oraclebuilding software, right. And
what we see is this fundamentalshift of things moving away from
technology not being able to doexactly what business wants, and
business people tellingtechnologists to make it work.
(01:26):
As a Plattner finally told thestory I knew since the 90s,
confidentially, they were sayingat Sapphira, 2019 or 18, that
was easy to build our to, I justwatched our launch customized CI
spent the day with the CFO, hewould explain me how business
work. And I would program theother night when the mainframe
was idle, and they came out theproduct, right. So technologist,
(01:48):
which ones lead, what businesswill be doing. Now we are in
this phase where all of a suddentechnology can do more than what
the current best practices ofbusiness demand. That is worse.
Maybe that's a bad analogythat's worse than the worst
virus for standard softwarevendors, because they want to
build things once and sell it tohundreds better to 1000s even
(02:08):
better to 10 1000s of companies.But if I don't know how these
best practices will be workingin what has changes, right? It's
what I call the infinite computeof the cloud, right? For the
first time, informationresources are no longer defined
by a finite investment of aCapEx server like, you know, the
SCP system being sized, big, bigbusiness in the past. Now, all
(02:29):
of a sudden, I can use littlemore compute, I can store a
little more information, I canone more AI. And the key is I
tie the cost of that it to mybusiness success. If I do more
business, I can happy to paymore for it. If I do less, I
want to pay less for that. Andthat changes how businesses are
being run that seems the bestpractices. And they're not
defined yet for the 21st centuryon this infinite compute the
(02:51):
cloud provides. And that meansyou have to enable people who
know their business, how tobuild stuff. Sorry, long story,
right? There's not enoughdevelopers. So not all the pro
coders can build on the thingsthat enterprise one so you have
to enable business users to whatI call own your automation
destiny. Right, because theyknow they will never get that
automation from their IT budget,their consulting company their
(03:16):
in house developers because ofbeneficial fly. So they now can
own the automation, Destinybuild what they want to build,
and have to build. And this kindof like, trend coming together
of business best practice notbeing known. And the enterprise
software vendors having toprovide a tool for business
users. Well, ideally, businessusers are frustrated and don't
see the automation to experimentto build things by themselves.
(03:39):
And that's the trend we'reseeing this way. We're seeing
local local goods come this way.We also see pass offering coming
up. Right, so I asked youbutchery from from workday at
the analyst summit back in 2014.If they will ever do a pass. And
he fought for me and said Now wewill not be doing this. Well, we
do a pass one of the P by doingthe typical integration and
(03:59):
extension parts. Right. Thenthey announced the workday cloud
platform which knows workdayconnect right so there is a past
there, right. We know SAP talkabout the BTP. Right, Oracle not
having a specific name for it,but also around the same moniker
right? I mean, cloud weld wasall about visual builder, which
is the fusion suite, low code,no code to what Oracle also use
(04:20):
internally. That's aninteresting trend to these local
local codes are being usedinternally by the vendors. And
of course, what has been verylong around apex in the
database, right to low code, nocode tools for people to build
stuff. What's in
Dave Essex (04:33):
it for the ERP vendors? Do you think like,
what's their motivation? It'shard to know people's motivation
unless they've told you and beenhonest about it. But is this
partly in response to customercomplaints that maybe they are
not happy with, let's say themulti tenant SAS things that
they're starting to use and theyneed more customization? Or is
it that the vendors feel theyneed to do this to speed up the
(04:57):
cloud migrations or some otherreason, reasons may be plural
why they're doing this?
Unknown (05:05):
Well, no, I think it's both sides, right? There's
frustration on the end userside, right? On the high level,
they're saying, where's theinnovation? Where's the vision
of ERP should be on the 21stcentury? It's a chicken and egg
problem, right? Because you'regonna say, Well, I don't know
what the business practices are.Can they all not build the
building something becausethey're afraid that they build
something with their preciousdevelopers, which may not be
(05:26):
working right. So the timewhere, because that's a
difference in the process.Right? When when I listened to
you, and Tim, tell me how yourbusiness works. And I build the
closest best thing we can acommon field what whoever builds
the close best thing how youwant to run your business is
going to get your business toautomate your enterprise. That
is the old world right now thenew world, you don't even know
how you will leverage the cloud,how many financial flows you
(05:48):
want to run, how manysimulations you want to run? How
much are you want to use in yourrecruiting process and your
performance management process?In running your how many payroll
runs right will pay will bealways honorable payable does
123 times once? All theseanswers have been things on the
higher level, which give it ahard time to the AP vendor? So I
always joke in the past, right?That the past for the ERP vendor
(06:08):
is like, what is the comfortblanket of light liners at the
peanuts, right who the littleboy always walks around this
comfort blanket for whateveranxiety reasons, right? The
reason for the ERP vendors,enterprise software vendors such
as ERP, right, same thing forSalesforce and so on, is if it
doesn't fully fit, here's yourway to extend to make it work
(06:28):
right or to even build somethingyourself. And that's the big
difference. And we see thatthese these tools, which have
always been there forintegration, right? Nothing ones
by itself, you always have twointegration options. You always
had some kind of customizationextension option. And now these
tools are getting beat up andbecoming build options right on
this. The three basic use case Icall enterprise application
platforms, which allow theintegration, the extension and
(06:51):
the building of standaloneapplications, and that's the big
innovation happening last fouror five years? How
Dave Essex (06:57):
is this going to change? The nature of the
interaction between theprofessional developer will be
within a company a customer?Yeah, that's quite aside. Yeah.
Like, you know, because it's youmentioned earlier at the
beginning, you talk about howthings used to be developed and
how it may be a one day meetingabout your business. And you
(07:18):
know, there were problems withthat, too. So how do you think
it's maybe is changing thenature of that relationship? And
maybe in what what more needs tobe done so that it works? Well?
Unknown (07:27):
But that's a great question. And that was one of
the mistakes when the first No,called local environments came
up with where they wereridiculed by the full quid pro
quo developers, then there wasangst around being replaced when
what what could happen when thebusiness users coming? Then
there was the backslash on theuser side, right? Because all of
a sudden, businesses realize,oh, this is why the developers,
the consultants, the things wentover budget, they were not happy
(07:50):
with them, because I didn'treally think this through,
right. So they're internalizingthat, how do I really want to
run the business. And this isthe sad truth of no code, low
code, right? A lot of thathappens in the free time,
additional time because nobusiness user, you typically get
some job description, oh, andyou're going to build this
little extension to the orderentry to the campaign management
to the hiring process. And so Iknow that there's people saying,
(08:10):
that's it. Is there a tool forthat I hear from someone who has
a tool for it, someone's beenusing, oh, my vendor has
provided me a local taco, do Ihave enough of this, I'm gonna
work in my free time, extra timeor get my rest of my business
done. So it's a very interestinglesson learned also for the
business users. But the fearinitially, which was there from
the flu quarters, all we'regoing to be replaced or have it,
(08:31):
we're going to have lots ofpeople building software, which
doesn't scale, that there willbe something which will not
perform correctly, that all haspretty much been put to bed.
Many pro coders are using lowcode now, because just faster.
And because the end of the day,no matter if you're a full code,
web developer, or no code,developer, business user, it all
about getting the software done.It's all about developer
(08:51):
velocity, right? And at the endof the day, everybody wants to
go home, instead of spendingtime on their computers do other
stuff, right? So if somethinggets me, that funder faster has
taken the fear of the pro codedeveloper from the no code
environment away. So that is anold conversation that the pro
coders are fearing the no code.Right?
Dave Essex (09:12):
Interesting. I'm wondering if there are within
the business user community someusers that would use low code
and maybe these are the peoplethat are out there already often
like an FP and a side the youknow, financial analytics who
can do who are comfortable doingExcel macros, which is a type of
(09:32):
programming using a tool that'smore friendly. Yeah, is that who
it is, if anyone's gonna do iton the business side?
Unknown (09:41):
Um, well, we've seen the low code no code kind of
like in the actual automationright or in the word automation,
why don't have the MicrosoftVisual Basic was a big thing
like little basic wasn'tempowering. Have you seen these
things before? They came fromthe productivity solution side
and they came from the low endentry to coding with visual so
excited right? Now they'recoming as Boehner feet of
(10:03):
frameworks of the enterprisesoftware vendors, right? It's a
huge part, right? Look, look atthe Salesforce numbers right? In
Salesforce does more business onplatform with development tools,
then in the automation areas,right? They kind of try to hide
it when that fourth bar got toobig. They separate between slack
and other stuff, right. Buteverybody can do the visual map
(10:23):
of the real map and edit thosetwo and say, Oh, God, this, this
was just more business on theplatform side, then in the
business automation side. Andthere is no better example of
the manifestation of thebusiness plus practice
uncertainty that we live inright now that the vendors all
are retrenched and saying, Look,we have to look at the tools and
to certain part is a fairanswer, because the tools have
(10:43):
to change as I'm moving to thecloud, right? And the Cloud
enables more things. And tobuild better code, right? If you
look at the full code part wherethere's an AI assistant, writing
the code, looking at the code,and so on, right, the Cloud
enables, again, for the infinitecompute to compute new coding
best practices, which will alsocome to the aid of the business
user who wants to own theautomation destiny.
Dave Essex (11:03):
As you mentioned, Visual Basic, I remember trying
to use that. So you can tell I'mnot a I'm not a pro coder. But
there was this whole category ofrapid application development
tools. And then there was nobusiness process management. The
last time I looked at it lookedlike and user friendly
diagramming tools that areconnected to program in the
back. Why are these loco toolsgoing to be any better? Or are
(11:26):
they any better than those rapidapplication tools? And in BPM
are how do they may be differ?And are used for different
purposes?
Unknown (11:35):
That's a great question, David. I mean, yeah,
remember PowerBuilder? Right. Sowhich is the gold standard for
building clients? Soapplication, so So every
technology shift, has seen areflection on the development
tools for it, right? So VisualBasic, was very important for
building 1000s of Windowsapplications. And because they
had the original control thatwill look and field was easy to
(11:56):
do, right? It was to get peopleand build applications on the
Windows platform and power billthat was super important to
build database independentclient server applications in
the enterprise, right. And wesee that every new technology
and technology is now the cloudbrings on a new set of developer
tools, capabilities, the problemor the challenges. There is no
developer companies anymore,right? Remember, Borland
(12:17):
whatever, right? They all gotkilled by Microsoft, at the end
of the day with the developmentenvironment, it has a huge push
on Microsoft and local localpower apps, right? In Microsoft,
interestingly, term that thehead of business applications
and power ups is reporting thesame person, right, which in
itself is on one side,potentially interesting, but on
the flip side shows the problemof saying, Hey, David, I'm
(12:39):
trying to sell you thisautomation, oh, it doesn't fit
in by this tool, right. Butthese two things, right, don't
really necessarily worktogether. If it's offered as
part of the offering, you stilldon't buy my applications. And
we have a tool if you want toextend something. It's a
different conversation. So I'mnot sure if Microsoft's figured
that other huge push across allthe it parts because they're all
Microsoft customers of usingPower Apps from the perspective,
(13:00):
right. So every new platformrequires new business, new
development tools that spin offfrom the past. Now it's for the
first time thanks to thebrowser, thanks to the internet,
that these tools get us I hatethe word but it's true. They get
democratized what everybody cando them as long as it's simple
enough, right. And we finallyget to where building software
can be done safely in a scalableway, in a good way. It's no
(13:22):
longer running in your Excelspreadsheet, because if you
don't have my spreadsheet,you'll have my macro, but you
have to import the macro, right?This was like stone age ways.
Whereas now people have lowcode, no code skills can build
enterprise scale applications.So it's a very powerful, and
it's very important because atthe end of day, the backdrop
before when I talk aboutbusiness perspective and
uncertainty, the backdrop beforeus all companies become software
(13:44):
companies. And we don't haveenough developers, right? The
number of developers isconstantly somewhere between 30
and 40 million, which is a hugenumber. But it's not enough for
the automation andexperimentation we need on
business best practices for the21st century to sort that out.
And the big question for me islike, will there be the defined
Best Practices how your businessin the cloud era, in 510 years
(14:05):
when the university doesn't likebasically I'm saying we remember
this, right? We're waiting forthe professor Hammer of client
server to come up for the cloudera. Right? So theoretically, as
everything goes in circles,right, science research should
pick up and say this is how youshould run business. But the
question is, is the scienceresearch cycle fast enough,
which personally, I have mydoubts, to catch the technology
(14:25):
innovation path, right? Socompanies will be by themselves
fixing up choosing the locallocal tools, obviously even have
the bulk of my information fromstandard software vendor, I will
use their tools. So I think thisway you see, and I have the
market overview for enterpriseapplication platform every year
P every business softwarevendor, has an extent integrate
(14:45):
and built right build capabilityin the build capability, in more
cases than not has low code, nocode option or is only running
locally.
Dave Essex (14:53):
This goal of expanding the pool of developers
that's something that SAP playedup at their tech ed when they
introduced their build low codetool. And Julia White, the CMO,
I think she said, What did shesay they either need 2 million
more sap developers. I mean,that's the ecosystem. That's,
that's, you know, everyone, notjust within SAP.
Unknown (15:14):
So there's about 2 million above developers. Right?
So these are the promo code fullcode developers right now SCP
had to do the dance, we talkedabout quickly that the pro
coders were afraid of the lowcode, no code, what could go
wrong, my job is gonna this, Ithink they did a pretty good job
at balancing those fears. Andtalking about the above, I would
have loved for them to lead onthe AP side, because that's the
(15:35):
typical audience at Tech Ed,right? Who's there? So don't get
them on the head and the tailout and why it's not gonna be so
bad. No talk about the evolutionof Baba, talk about the
challenge in that. And ideally,you managed to combine the two.
I mean, you see this really wellat Oracle, because Oracle visual
builder tool is the one thatOracle's application development
(15:55):
is building with. And this isbasically the knighthood for any
enterprise software vendorsdevelopment tool. If you say,
look, the same thing we arebuilding, this is what you can
use. Now that gives you thetrust, it gives the same look
and feel it has efficiencies onthe identity on the login on
security on the scalabilityside, right? That's what you
actually want to achieve. Right?And that's the next step coming
back to sap of SAP saying, Oh,and by the way, but we need
(16:17):
higher productivity for our inhouse developers and the using
SAP built for these, these usecases, these and these
applications and so on.
Dave Essex (16:24):
Do you think that the story maybe I misunderstood
what you just said about Oracle?Do you think that they had the
potential conflicts figured outbetter, and that the fact that
the tool is the same tool thatthey use internally? Did they
have their strategy figured outbetter than SAP? Are they
roughly comfortable?
Unknown (16:39):
The only look Oracle's application vendor, it's very
comfortable. Not only that,Oracle is two, three years
ahead. Because applicationsbuilt on visual builder and
application development whencomplete licensable modules, SCP
is not there yet. But then ifyou take Oracle as a total,
right, I mean, Oracle supportsthe largest developer community
out there, right? They have12 13 million developers, which
(17:01):
is Java, right. So Oracle knowsthis dichotomy between full
code, low code, business, and soon better than probably anybody,
because they have the lightestpro core developer community and
the second or largestapplication developer site on
that site. So they decided to godown to separate tools, which I
think is valid, because youdon't want to touch the Java
(17:22):
franchise with local local, theinteresting thing is behind many
of these local local tools, runsall the information, all the
innovation, which came with theoriginal, some Java, virtual
machine to create thisportability and scalability of
the code right there. Prettymuch all of them are Java
bytecode compatible, meaningthat the leveraging sending on
shoulders of giants, the workthat son has put into Java,
(17:43):
which
Dave Essex (17:45):
if this category of software is really for
traditional developers,professional developers, how do
you think increased use of lowcode tools will change the
nature of enterprise softwaredevelopment and how developers
do their jobs
Unknown (18:00):
was worth maybe on the nature of that, right? Maybe
they're moving into a nonmonolithical world, which
personally I hope, right, sothis, this one size fits all of
the traditional ERP system,right? And if it doesn't fit,
you have to configure it. Andwhile you configure it, it gets
more complex, right? Enterpriseoperate on different business
model and best practices, right?If you think like, like a
(18:21):
company like GE, or, or like aSiemens who have, like consumer
business and sell nuclear powerplants, right? I cannot do this
with the same order entrysystem, right? Like a go to
market will be fundamentallydifferent that we come to a
world where there's morecomponentize different things.
And then, like you said before,software is what want these
companies software as acompetitive asset to run a
(18:42):
competitive strategy. So my samefirm was you have to hire
developers, again, to buildthings right, if they will,
building them with the pro codetools of the past, or if they
will leverage really wellbreaking low code, no code tools
that remains to be seen. But wemight be going into no longer
the standard software worldapproach. But saying, like, I'm
using some standard components,but then I'm building my
(19:03):
differentiation, where itmatters to me as an enterprise
with these tools. I'm
Dave Essex (19:07):
actually wondering what the new these tools is
local tools will help theprofessional developers
accomplish that was harder to dobefore
Unknown (19:16):
there's many things right. So if you build things by
yourself and appropriateplatform, you have to worry
about the most basic things oflike, how will your user sign
in? How will you use get accessto things how you do security?
How do you bring in your extraschema, in combination with the
standard software? How will thatbe all the tool thing? get
backed up, right, brought backtransported somewhere? You have
(19:38):
to worry about all these things.All these things are answered
when you do this in the tool ofthe ERP vendor of the enterprise
software vendor, right? Becauseit's the standard parts of it.
So it's a significantproductivity boosts for proCO
developer. This is why we seeProcore developers using much
much more low code, no codeenvironment, because they're
solving the business needs ofgetting something built simply
(19:58):
faster, right. It's all Aboutdeveloper velocity, right?
Everybody wants to be home fordinner or have time for dinner.
Instead of building some codewith some tools, which are hard
to use. And this is afundamental shift also in the
developer and the Procoredeveloper community are putting
more and more applicationplatform specific badges
certifications out there. It'sno longer like a full core Java
developer, JavaScript developer,a Python developer and so on,
(20:20):
right, it matters more and more,which business applications can
you deliver result quickly,whereas the purest pro quo
developers, the numbers areslowly going down. You wrote
Dave Essex (20:30):
or CO wrote shortlist reports. There's just
something constellationresearcher and player does a lot
of these are on low code, nocode tools. One report was about
tools specifically for SAPsystems was about low code tools
and platforms. I think they'renot tied to any one vendor
ecosystem. How mature in generalare these tools?
Unknown (20:52):
Oh, people are building stuff of them every day and
running stuff every day. Right?And very, very interesting stuff
every day, right? I mean, yeah,so we do the shortlist quickly.
We try to help companiespractice what I do the research
enterprise acceleration, right,select your enterprise software
first faster. Don't do a longlist to this. But look at these
ones will we know these are goodvendors is when you publish the
shortlist twice a year. Andyeah, the SCP ecosystem is so
(21:14):
big while at the same time weknow SCP doesn't have enough
developers in house themselves,right? They're not building
software fast enough. That wasthe big relevation of sapphire
was the admittance of that. Yousee this across the industry?
Why do you see all the upheavalhas changed their partner
strategy, why they want to getpartners to something because of
nothing developers? So this way,we did a separate shortlist for
SCP system with five vendors onthem. And people are building
(21:36):
standalone real worldapplications. So I can make one
example for instance, a Neptunesoftware. It's only in the SCP
ecosystem example, with apublished case study. There's a
German service janitorialservice, why not do smuin. And I
wrote a case study about them.The margins in the business are
so low that the HCM softwarelicense is too expensive. And
(21:56):
three non coders, nondevelopers, business users and
communications departments andinteresting lingo that
communications and HR cametogether, but build a complete
HR solution on the platform. SoEmployee Self Service, manual
self service time entrance, nowthey move payroll to it, which
is unbelievable, right? So it'salso if I would be like invited
(22:17):
often right? What chores somealarm bells should be going on.
If like three business users canbuild an HCM solution good
enough for janitorial servicecompany. Yes, it might not have
all the bells and whistles andso on. But the UI is attractive
at once on the smartphones ofthe people, you can imagine if
you can't buy the license of anHCM system for these users,
right? Because the money beingmade, you can't provide them a
(22:37):
system so to bring your owndevice. So that shows the
evolution of low code, no codereally well. And obviously,
people clocking in getting paidshows it is a critical
application right within domainwhere normally you would never
say hey, no, we're gonna go toTime Attendance if planning and
attendance these things
Dave Essex (22:53):
like bringing back the days of homegrown systems
internally developed, maybe notfully, but
Unknown (22:59):
yes, no, no, it has to right. So so if you take the
macro level perspective, Ialways say the cloud era is like
the mainframe here. So I'm goodboth too young to live at the
beginning of the mainframe era.So 30 years ago, or IT guys were
telling me Do you know, when younegotiate hard with IBM, what
you would get, you don't get adiscount on the hardware, you
got to the developer? Yes, forfree, right, because the
(23:21):
hardware of the platform washeavy that IBM knew you have to
build a software. And now thecloud is here. And everybody
knows you need to build thesoftware to you cannot wait
right? This is the interestingthing, the the adoption, the
disruption process, too fast forsomeone to say, All right, we're
gonna use our old site clientswho have a system before move to
the cloud to SAP Oracle workdayand what else have figured out
(23:43):
how the best practices work, butyou will not be in business
anymore, right? So the answercan only be to build code. And
low code, no code is superimportant. From that
perspective.
Dave Essex (23:53):
I might have misunderstood you. In some
cases, people are developing theapp they need and it's not that
they're extending, let's say sfor HANA Cloud, or Oracle ERP
cloud, or is it both? Sometimesthey're doing a new thing? And
sometimes they are extending?
Unknown (24:09):
Yeah. So so this way, the ERP platforms, enterprise
application platform support isthree generic scenarios, the
classic integration, the classicextension, I still can't build
my own HR system. And then thebuild scenario where I build
something from scratch, whichruns in the ecosystem, of course
of that of that applicationwindow.
Dave Essex (24:28):
Is there any type of thing you might have mentioned
already, that these tools arebest for any anything that
they're not so good at
Unknown (24:36):
building features inside of them? I would not
necessarily because they're moreabout building things fast. Not
building things on this superexpensive, super scalable way. I
would not build a manufacturingplanning engine on this. I've
not played a payroll system onthem. Right. I would leave that
to pro code environment. Right.Fair. Scalability willingly
(24:56):
matters, massive scalability,but the clouds all The Solution
scale horizontally, yeah, we'regoing to have more users using
this, you can hopefully havemore business because we take
your business to your IT spend,and you're more than happy to
pay for it. Right. So that's,that's an interesting,
interesting part for it. So atthe end of the day, there's
nothing you should really shyaway from it may not have the
(25:17):
scalability you want. Butbusiness users, we use promo
code low code will not put a newpill, or any of the local
Dave Essex (25:24):
tools that are been introduced by this ERP vendors
have a truly homegrown We know,for example, that SAP build is,
I think, part not entirely basedon AP Guyver. Which we acquired.
Unknown (25:36):
Yeah, no, it really depends, right? Different
strategies everywhere.Partnerships, acquisitions, like
an SCP SCP took that path fromOracle is completely native
right built by themselves.workday is completely native
built by themselves in forestcompletely native built by
themselves, right? MicrosoftDynamics, you can of course,
discuss their using their lowcode, no code environment,
(25:58):
right. But just standaloneavailable as well. Right. So
power apps, we can argue whetherthis right, Salesforce has
equally thing to straddle,because they have the developer
environments and the thingswhich they put in their
platform. But that's somethingwhich Oracle has shown you can
do that, right. So you can haveJava as a pro quo developer
environment and visual builderand Apex, they have to right you
can choose because if you lookat Dora, c'mon packet more
(26:21):
rights under developers andapplications. Now there's a
little database. Andsurprisingly, the database by
the way, it's the oldest localenvironment at Oracle, right?
Older than Java before theacquisitions apex in the
database, where you can very,very quickly build tiny little
departmental originallypositioned business
applications. Is there
Dave Essex (26:37):
an advantage to buying the low code tool that's
offered by the ERP vendorinstead of buying one of these
other tools that from what Icould tell, and I haven't
visited their websites fundedyet that is supports more than
one system any disadvantages toand there any disadvantages?
Maybe they using like thehomegrown thing that visual?
(26:57):
Oracle has? But great
Unknown (26:59):
question that comes back to your enterprise software
landscape, right? If you havemultiple systems and automation
needs across them, you will tryto standardize this right? It's
very similar things. We see thisbank for the integration side,
right? You use integration toolsof your systems. So when does or
do you have a standalone thirdparty integration? So like,
Informatica, mule, soft, and soon, right? So the same thing is
(27:20):
here, only that we see thedemocratization of these tools,
you don't even know which lowcode, no code tools, somebody
might be running on departmentlevel, which he got from
Microsoft. It's also becauseMicrosoft is everywhere. You
could see that right? I can goalways to my browser and go to a
peon krcl Mendix out systems,which are the other vendors next
to Neptune on our shortlist, alittle promotion here, right and
(27:43):
use them and I don't even knowabout it, right. Because the
API's are published, I don't seethe API consumption IT security
backend side, right, and seestuff going through ports. But
as long as it's the secured way,which I opened up as it I can't
say anything about it. So itreally comes back to do you want
to have code assets for your butthe enterprise developers, but
for your end user developers tobe reused across multiple
(28:04):
platforms. And that can be quitea stretch, right? We're not that
mature in that space yet. But ifyou look to some of the more
established vendors, like apiano piano will provide your
front end to go into differentERP backends, right on the local
node side? So the answer iseasy. It's two words, it
depends.
Dave Essex (28:23):
If, if these things get popular, where could this
go? Like what could be if theytake off and reach their
potential? And people who usemore than them more and more?
What is the potential? Like whatcould this dude for, let's say,
the usefulness of enterpriseapps or just you know, digital
transformation, that kind ofthing?
Unknown (28:43):
It's massive, right? Because we always talk since
standard software today, wetalked about the long tail,
which the vendor whichconsulting budgets, IT teams
will never get to right. Now,all these users who are
affected, right, because if youadd up the use case, on Long
Tail, you end up with everybusiness user having two or
three scenarios where the longtail is not being automated
Well, right. So the for thesource MC, the empowerment and
(29:06):
enablement of long tailautomation, and what could
possibly go wrong, what couldpossibly happen, that will have
much, much more softwareenablement. And the newer
generations are more at riskthings, the millennials to do
things and unhappy ifsomething's there, and you give
them an outlet to buildsomething. So you will see much,
much more low code, no codeapplications in the space than
(29:27):
you probably ever dreamedbefore. But in the longer run
the low code, no codeapplications, all application
development follows this oldparadigm, which I can see being
replaced already, which is theuser has to show up to
something. Right? So the newthing will be is autonomous
software self driving software.Hey, David, Holger, you click
these things three, four timesthat automated this for you. Is
(29:48):
that okay? Oh, by the way, Iknow what you're gonna do. Let
me run this for you. Right. Soso it's the software looking
what people are doing andautomating things where you see
the spent man Your time on arepetitive basis, right? That's
low hanging fruit. But again,what could be wrong? The Big
Brother, whatever, lots ofthings, but it has to be the
point because, at least on theplanet, right, we're running out
(30:11):
of hands, right? All theautomation percentage, the hand
to machine automation has tochange. Right. And the OPEC,
first world countries, we'removing from six people working
supporting one retired person,to two people working supporting
one retired person, we can onlyget there through massive,
massive automation. And thetraditional thinking is all we
do this with software great,which still has to be built on
(30:31):
the artisan craftsmanship way ofsomebody showing up
understanding the tool, gothrough the blood, sweat, and
tears to get getting it lifegetting approved of it. And then
it's great, right? And then itbreaks three weeks later,
whatever. Right now, it shouldbe like seeing what is happening
in the enterprise? What arepeople doing, where they're
spending the time on one of thepetal paths? Where the strategic
process next fast, competitiveones? And how can that be
(30:54):
alternative?
Dave Essex (30:55):
That's a that's a pretty hopeful view of, and I'm
impressed by it by the way ofautomation, or the potential of
this thing to figure out whatyou're doing. And, you know,
tying it to the people payinginto the retirement system,
because I often take the darkerview, which is you know, it's
kind of eliminate jobs and allthat. But I, if I understood you
correctly, you're saying thatkeeping the business value going
(31:18):
and just sort of the engine ofthe economy going and then
supporting this larger group ofpeople like me, and you, I guess
that are going to retire? Yeah.Is that was that was that what
you're saying? That that's howthis automation rather than
hurting people and creatingpoverty, could
Unknown (31:37):
I err on the positive side? I'm an optimist from the
perspective, right. And there'sso many scenarios in the past
Remember, all these unemployedtruck drivers, which was
supposed to be there from theself driving truck and to
wherever self driving truck and,and look, Walmart's paying the
truck drivers 100,000 bucks todrive trucks around, right?
Because there's such a shortage.On the one side, I'm Bill Gates
(31:57):
has this great quote, what weoverestimate what's going to
happen in one year, weunderestimate what's going to
happen in 10 years. So which isI think, very valid from that
perspective. But then you lookat places where you see
unfavorable out generationalautomation, and Japan, right,
which is an overly old societywhere, alright, since 10 years,
seniors prefer robots to servicethem than a human, because the
(32:20):
robot is always available, rightis under my control, I can do
the plaque, they're not gonnasteal something from me,
thinking about the technology.So we need the automation, the
artificial intelligence, theself driving the autonomous
capabilities, to maintain andkeep doing what we're doing to
(32:40):
get the productivity levels, wethink about when one person
living retirement, and twopeople having to pay for it, and
living by themselves to writecompletely different ways how to
get taxation benefits, and soon, which is all providing on
the wall, which is comingtowards us. So I'm more than
happy to get any automation thatwe can get. And to try to add
people have to augment theirskills, right. upskilling and
(33:03):
staying up to speed with yourskill. So lifelong learning. You
better endorsed that, right? Ifyou have a job today, which can
be taken away by cheap, easyautomation, you better start
looking for but another job,then of course, the flip side is
that the hope is that theautomation games allow things
like a basic income, but peoplewho don't have the skills are
all people who don't have towork. Right would be great. We
(33:25):
will do podcast all day, David.
Dave Essex (33:27):
I must admit the chat GPT. Technology has been
getting a lot of discussion onmy my journalism friends and CO
live.
Unknown (33:35):
I'm very, very sure yeah. And all the generative AI
is very, very interesting,right? If you look outside of
Delhi and forgot the name of theother one, right, where you just
type a sentence and creates aunique picture for you. Right,
so So we're seeing that AI isdoing sort of creative things,
right? But at the end of theday, right? Isn't it more fun to
do a podcast and write a pieceabout this with your hands
(33:56):
without dictating it? Right?Which technology of Chet GPT can
listen to this and writes yourpost? I mean, hey, maybe you
don't tell whoever your boss isthat it was written by But why
don't go out, enjoy the niceweather write it,
Dave Essex (34:09):
maybe it'll be an assistant and then you do a
little cleanup. And that'llstill count as as a reason to
keep paying me. Am I exactly.
Unknown (34:18):
Well, it will be time to be perfect. will be long
time.
Dave Essex (34:21):
Yeah. Well, it's good day in on a positive note.
Holger, I appreciate your timeand always great to chat with
you.
Unknown (34:27):
My pleasure. Thanks for having me, David.
It's the ERP con fab. I'm David Essex industry
editor as search ERP. vendorshave been introducing low code,
no code development tools thatthey claim will allow non
technical business users towrite enterprise level software.
But how good are these tools?And who really uses them the
most? Today's guest, HolgerMueller, Vice President and
(00:25):
Principal Analyst atConstellation Research, has
covered this market extensivelyfor his firm shortlist reports.
And previously worked insoftware development and SAP and
Oracle, Holger, the major ERPvendors, and actually some of
the smaller ones to have beenadding these low code, no code
tools for a good couple years,maybe a little longer. And it's
(00:49):
been a real trend SAP recentlyintroduced build, it's really
seems to be an effort among ERPvendors to provide this
capability. Why do you thinkthey've been adding these and
making such a big deal out ofthem in the last couple of
years?
Unknown (01:04):
Yeah, that's a great observation, David. So the
background to this is somethingI've seen since a number of
years coming from theapplication space, having spent
20 years at SAP and Oraclebuilding software, right. And
what we see is this fundamentalshift of things moving away from
technology not being able to doexactly what business wants, and
business people tellingtechnologists to make it work.
(01:26):
As a Plattner finally told thestory I knew since the 90s,
confidentially, they were sayingat Sapphira, 2019 or 18, that
was easy to build our to, I justwatched our launch customized CI
spent the day with the CFO, hewould explain me how business
work. And I would program theother night when the mainframe
was idle, and they came out theproduct, right. So technologist,
(01:48):
which ones lead, what businesswill be doing. Now we are in
this phase where all of a suddentechnology can do more than what
the current best practices ofbusiness demand. That is worse.
Maybe that's a bad analogythat's worse than the worst
virus for standard softwarevendors, because they want to
build things once and sell it tohundreds better to 1000s even
(02:08):
better to 10 1000s of companies.But if I don't know how these
best practices will be workingin what has changes, right? It's
what I call the infinite computeof the cloud, right? For the
first time, informationresources are no longer defined
by a finite investment of aCapEx server like, you know, the
SCP system being sized, big, bigbusiness in the past. Now, all
(02:29):
of a sudden, I can use littlemore compute, I can store a
little more information, I canone more AI. And the key is I
tie the cost of that it to mybusiness success. If I do more
business, I can happy to paymore for it. If I do less, I
want to pay less for that. Andthat changes how businesses are
being run that seems the bestpractices. And they're not
defined yet for the 21st centuryon this infinite compute the
(02:51):
cloud provides. And that meansyou have to enable people who
know their business, how tobuild stuff. Sorry, long story,
right? There's not enoughdevelopers. So not all the pro
coders can build on the thingsthat enterprise one so you have
to enable business users to whatI call own your automation
destiny. Right, because theyknow they will never get that
automation from their IT budget,their consulting company their
(03:16):
in house developers because ofbeneficial fly. So they now can
own the automation, Destinybuild what they want to build,
and have to build. And this kindof like, trend coming together
of business best practice notbeing known. And the enterprise
software vendors having toprovide a tool for business
users. Well, ideally, businessusers are frustrated and don't
see the automation to experimentto build things by themselves.
(03:39):
And that's the trend we'reseeing this way. We're seeing
local local goods come this way.We also see pass offering coming
up. Right, so I asked youbutchery from from workday at
the analyst summit back in 2014.If they will ever do a pass. And
he fought for me and said Now wewill not be doing this. Well, we
do a pass one of the P by doingthe typical integration and
(03:59):
extension parts. Right. Thenthey announced the workday cloud
platform which knows workdayconnect right so there is a past
there, right. We know SAP talkabout the BTP. Right, Oracle not
having a specific name for it,but also around the same moniker
right? I mean, cloud weld wasall about visual builder, which
is the fusion suite, low code,no code to what Oracle also use
(04:20):
internally. That's aninteresting trend to these local
local codes are being usedinternally by the vendors. And
of course, what has been verylong around apex in the
database, right to low code, nocode tools for people to build
stuff. What's in
Dave Essex (04:33):
it for the ERP vendors? Do you think like,
what's their motivation? It'shard to know people's motivation
unless they've told you and beenhonest about it. But is this
partly in response to customercomplaints that maybe they are
not happy with, let's say themulti tenant SAS things that
they're starting to use and theyneed more customization? Or is
it that the vendors feel theyneed to do this to speed up the
(04:57):
cloud migrations or some otherreason, reasons may be plural
why they're doing this?
Unknown (05:05):
Well, no, I think it's both sides, right? There's
frustration on the end userside, right? On the high level,
they're saying, where's theinnovation? Where's the vision
of ERP should be on the 21stcentury? It's a chicken and egg
problem, right? Because you'regonna say, Well, I don't know
what the business practices are.Can they all not build the
building something becausethey're afraid that they build
something with their preciousdevelopers, which may not be
(05:26):
working right. So the timewhere, because that's a
difference in the process.Right? When when I listened to
you, and Tim, tell me how yourbusiness works. And I build the
closest best thing we can acommon field what whoever builds
the close best thing how youwant to run your business is
going to get your business toautomate your enterprise. That
is the old world right now thenew world, you don't even know
how you will leverage the cloud,how many financial flows you
(05:48):
want to run, how manysimulations you want to run? How
much are you want to use in yourrecruiting process and your
performance management process?In running your how many payroll
runs right will pay will bealways honorable payable does
123 times once? All theseanswers have been things on the
higher level, which give it ahard time to the AP vendor? So I
always joke in the past, right?That the past for the ERP vendor
(06:08):
is like, what is the comfortblanket of light liners at the
peanuts, right who the littleboy always walks around this
comfort blanket for whateveranxiety reasons, right? The
reason for the ERP vendors,enterprise software vendors such
as ERP, right, same thing forSalesforce and so on, is if it
doesn't fully fit, here's yourway to extend to make it work
(06:28):
right or to even build somethingyourself. And that's the big
difference. And we see thatthese these tools, which have
always been there forintegration, right? Nothing ones
by itself, you always have twointegration options. You always
had some kind of customizationextension option. And now these
tools are getting beat up andbecoming build options right on
this. The three basic use case Icall enterprise application
platforms, which allow theintegration, the extension and
(06:51):
the building of standaloneapplications, and that's the big
innovation happening last fouror five years? How
Dave Essex (06:57):
is this going to change? The nature of the
interaction between theprofessional developer will be
within a company a customer?Yeah, that's quite aside. Yeah.
Like, you know, because it's youmentioned earlier at the
beginning, you talk about howthings used to be developed and
how it may be a one day meetingabout your business. And you
(07:18):
know, there were problems withthat, too. So how do you think
it's maybe is changing thenature of that relationship? And
maybe in what what more needs tobe done so that it works? Well?
Unknown (07:27):
But that's a great question. And that was one of
the mistakes when the first No,called local environments came
up with where they wereridiculed by the full quid pro
quo developers, then there wasangst around being replaced when
what what could happen when thebusiness users coming? Then
there was the backslash on theuser side, right? Because all of
a sudden, businesses realize,oh, this is why the developers,
the consultants, the things wentover budget, they were not happy
(07:50):
with them, because I didn'treally think this through,
right. So they're internalizingthat, how do I really want to
run the business. And this isthe sad truth of no code, low
code, right? A lot of thathappens in the free time,
additional time because nobusiness user, you typically get
some job description, oh, andyou're going to build this
little extension to the orderentry to the campaign management
to the hiring process. And so Iknow that there's people saying,
(08:10):
that's it. Is there a tool forthat I hear from someone who has
a tool for it, someone's beenusing, oh, my vendor has
provided me a local taco, do Ihave enough of this, I'm gonna
work in my free time, extra timeor get my rest of my business
done. So it's a very interestinglesson learned also for the
business users. But the fearinitially, which was there from
the flu quarters, all we'regoing to be replaced or have it,
(08:31):
we're going to have lots ofpeople building software, which
doesn't scale, that there willbe something which will not
perform correctly, that all haspretty much been put to bed.
Many pro coders are using lowcode now, because just faster.
And because the end of the day,no matter if you're a full code,
web developer, or no code,developer, business user, it all
about getting the software done.It's all about developer
(08:51):
velocity, right? And at the endof the day, everybody wants to
go home, instead of spendingtime on their computers do other
stuff, right? So if somethinggets me, that funder faster has
taken the fear of the pro codedeveloper from the no code
environment away. So that is anold conversation that the pro
coders are fearing the no code.Right?
Dave Essex (09:12):
Interesting. I'm wondering if there are within
the business user community someusers that would use low code
and maybe these are the peoplethat are out there already often
like an FP and a side the youknow, financial analytics who
can do who are comfortable doingExcel macros, which is a type of
(09:32):
programming using a tool that'smore friendly. Yeah, is that who
it is, if anyone's gonna do iton the business side?
Unknown (09:41):
Um, well, we've seen the low code no code kind of
like in the actual automationright or in the word automation,
why don't have the MicrosoftVisual Basic was a big thing
like little basic wasn'tempowering. Have you seen these
things before? They came fromthe productivity solution side
and they came from the low endentry to coding with visual so
excited right? Now they'recoming as Boehner feet of
(10:03):
frameworks of the enterprisesoftware vendors, right? It's a
huge part, right? Look, look atthe Salesforce numbers right? In
Salesforce does more business onplatform with development tools,
then in the automation areas,right? They kind of try to hide
it when that fourth bar got toobig. They separate between slack
and other stuff, right. Buteverybody can do the visual map
(10:23):
of the real map and edit thosetwo and say, Oh, God, this, this
was just more business on theplatform side, then in the
business automation side. Andthere is no better example of
the manifestation of thebusiness plus practice
uncertainty that we live inright now that the vendors all
are retrenched and saying, Look,we have to look at the tools and
to certain part is a fairanswer, because the tools have
(10:43):
to change as I'm moving to thecloud, right? And the Cloud
enables more things. And tobuild better code, right? If you
look at the full code part wherethere's an AI assistant, writing
the code, looking at the code,and so on, right, the Cloud
enables, again, for the infinitecompute to compute new coding
best practices, which will alsocome to the aid of the business
user who wants to own theautomation destiny.
Dave Essex (11:03):
As you mentioned, Visual Basic, I remember trying
to use that. So you can tell I'mnot a I'm not a pro coder. But
there was this whole category ofrapid application development
tools. And then there was nobusiness process management. The
last time I looked at it lookedlike and user friendly
diagramming tools that areconnected to program in the
back. Why are these loco toolsgoing to be any better? Or are
(11:26):
they any better than those rapidapplication tools? And in BPM
are how do they may be differ?And are used for different
purposes?
Unknown (11:35):
That's a great question, David. I mean, yeah,
remember PowerBuilder? Right. Sowhich is the gold standard for
building clients? Soapplication, so So every
technology shift, has seen areflection on the development
tools for it, right? So VisualBasic, was very important for
building 1000s of Windowsapplications. And because they
had the original control thatwill look and field was easy to
(11:56):
do, right? It was to get peopleand build applications on the
Windows platform and power billthat was super important to
build database independentclient server applications in
the enterprise, right. And wesee that every new technology
and technology is now the cloudbrings on a new set of developer
tools, capabilities, the problemor the challenges. There is no
developer companies anymore,right? Remember, Borland
(12:17):
whatever, right? They all gotkilled by Microsoft, at the end
of the day with the developmentenvironment, it has a huge push
on Microsoft and local localpower apps, right? In Microsoft,
interestingly, term that thehead of business applications
and power ups is reporting thesame person, right, which in
itself is on one side,potentially interesting, but on
the flip side shows the problemof saying, Hey, David, I'm
(12:39):
trying to sell you thisautomation, oh, it doesn't fit
in by this tool, right. Butthese two things, right, don't
really necessarily worktogether. If it's offered as
part of the offering, you stilldon't buy my applications. And
we have a tool if you want toextend something. It's a
different conversation. So I'mnot sure if Microsoft's figured
that other huge push across allthe it parts because they're all
Microsoft customers of usingPower Apps from the perspective,
(13:00):
right. So every new platformrequires new business, new
development tools that spin offfrom the past. Now it's for the
first time thanks to thebrowser, thanks to the internet,
that these tools get us I hatethe word but it's true. They get
democratized what everybody cando them as long as it's simple
enough, right. And we finallyget to where building software
can be done safely in a scalableway, in a good way. It's no
(13:22):
longer running in your Excelspreadsheet, because if you
don't have my spreadsheet,you'll have my macro, but you
have to import the macro, right?This was like stone age ways.
Whereas now people have lowcode, no code skills can build
enterprise scale applications.So it's a very powerful, and
it's very important because atthe end of day, the backdrop
before when I talk aboutbusiness perspective and
uncertainty, the backdrop beforeus all companies become software
(13:44):
companies. And we don't haveenough developers, right? The
number of developers isconstantly somewhere between 30
and 40 million, which is a hugenumber. But it's not enough for
the automation andexperimentation we need on
business best practices for the21st century to sort that out.
And the big question for me islike, will there be the defined
Best Practices how your businessin the cloud era, in 510 years
(14:05):
when the university doesn't likebasically I'm saying we remember
this, right? We're waiting forthe professor Hammer of client
server to come up for the cloudera. Right? So theoretically, as
everything goes in circles,right, science research should
pick up and say this is how youshould run business. But the
question is, is the scienceresearch cycle fast enough,
which personally, I have mydoubts, to catch the technology
(14:25):
innovation path, right? Socompanies will be by themselves
fixing up choosing the locallocal tools, obviously even have
the bulk of my information fromstandard software vendor, I will
use their tools. So I think thisway you see, and I have the
market overview for enterpriseapplication platform every year
P every business softwarevendor, has an extent integrate
(14:45):
and built right build capabilityin the build capability, in more
cases than not has low code, nocode option or is only running
locally.
Dave Essex (14:53):
This goal of expanding the pool of developers
that's something that SAP playedup at their tech ed when they
introduced their build low codetool. And Julia White, the CMO,
I think she said, What did shesay they either need 2 million
more sap developers. I mean,that's the ecosystem. That's,
that's, you know, everyone, notjust within SAP.
Unknown (15:14):
So there's about 2 million above developers. Right?
So these are the promo code fullcode developers right now SCP
had to do the dance, we talkedabout quickly that the pro
coders were afraid of the lowcode, no code, what could go
wrong, my job is gonna this, Ithink they did a pretty good job
at balancing those fears. Andtalking about the above, I would
have loved for them to lead onthe AP side, because that's the
(15:35):
typical audience at Tech Ed,right? Who's there? So don't get
them on the head and the tailout and why it's not gonna be so
bad. No talk about the evolutionof Baba, talk about the
challenge in that. And ideally,you managed to combine the two.
I mean, you see this really wellat Oracle, because Oracle visual
builder tool is the one thatOracle's application development
(15:55):
is building with. And this isbasically the knighthood for any
enterprise software vendorsdevelopment tool. If you say,
look, the same thing we arebuilding, this is what you can
use. Now that gives you thetrust, it gives the same look
and feel it has efficiencies onthe identity on the login on
security on the scalabilityside, right? That's what you
actually want to achieve. Right?And that's the next step coming
back to sap of SAP saying, Oh,and by the way, but we need
(16:17):
higher productivity for our inhouse developers and the using
SAP built for these, these usecases, these and these
applications and so on.
Dave Essex (16:24):
Do you think that the story maybe I misunderstood
what you just said about Oracle?Do you think that they had the
potential conflicts figured outbetter, and that the fact that
the tool is the same tool thatthey use internally? Did they
have their strategy figured outbetter than SAP? Are they
roughly comfortable?
Unknown (16:39):
The only look Oracle's application vendor, it's very
comfortable. Not only that,Oracle is two, three years
ahead. Because applicationsbuilt on visual builder and
application development whencomplete licensable modules, SCP
is not there yet. But then ifyou take Oracle as a total,
right, I mean, Oracle supportsthe largest developer community
out there, right? They have12 13 million developers, which
(17:01):
is Java, right. So Oracle knowsthis dichotomy between full
code, low code, business, and soon better than probably anybody,
because they have the lightestpro core developer community and
the second or largestapplication developer site on
that site. So they decided to godown to separate tools, which I
think is valid, because youdon't want to touch the Java
(17:22):
franchise with local local, theinteresting thing is behind many
of these local local tools, runsall the information, all the
innovation, which came with theoriginal, some Java, virtual
machine to create thisportability and scalability of
the code right there. Prettymuch all of them are Java
bytecode compatible, meaningthat the leveraging sending on
shoulders of giants, the workthat son has put into Java,
(17:43):
which
Dave Essex (17:45):
if this category of software is really for
traditional developers,professional developers, how do
you think increased use of lowcode tools will change the
nature of enterprise softwaredevelopment and how developers
do their jobs
Unknown (18:00):
was worth maybe on the nature of that, right? Maybe
they're moving into a nonmonolithical world, which
personally I hope, right, sothis, this one size fits all of
the traditional ERP system,right? And if it doesn't fit,
you have to configure it. Andwhile you configure it, it gets
more complex, right? Enterpriseoperate on different business
model and best practices, right?If you think like, like a
(18:21):
company like GE, or, or like aSiemens who have, like consumer
business and sell nuclear powerplants, right? I cannot do this
with the same order entrysystem, right? Like a go to
market will be fundamentallydifferent that we come to a
world where there's morecomponentize different things.
And then, like you said before,software is what want these
companies software as acompetitive asset to run a
(18:42):
competitive strategy. So my samefirm was you have to hire
developers, again, to buildthings right, if they will,
building them with the pro codetools of the past, or if they
will leverage really wellbreaking low code, no code tools
that remains to be seen. But wemight be going into no longer
the standard software worldapproach. But saying, like, I'm
using some standard components,but then I'm building my
(19:03):
differentiation, where itmatters to me as an enterprise
with these tools. I'm
Dave Essex (19:07):
actually wondering what the new these tools is
local tools will help theprofessional developers
accomplish that was harder to dobefore
Unknown (19:16):
there's many things right. So if you build things by
yourself and appropriateplatform, you have to worry
about the most basic things oflike, how will your user sign
in? How will you use get accessto things how you do security?
How do you bring in your extraschema, in combination with the
standard software? How will thatbe all the tool thing? get
backed up, right, brought backtransported somewhere? You have
(19:38):
to worry about all these things.All these things are answered
when you do this in the tool ofthe ERP vendor of the enterprise
software vendor, right? Becauseit's the standard parts of it.
So it's a significantproductivity boosts for proCO
developer. This is why we seeProcore developers using much
much more low code, no codeenvironment, because they're
solving the business needs ofgetting something built simply
(19:58):
faster, right. It's all Aboutdeveloper velocity, right?
Everybody wants to be home fordinner or have time for dinner.
Instead of building some codewith some tools, which are hard
to use. And this is afundamental shift also in the
developer and the Procoredeveloper community are putting
more and more applicationplatform specific badges
certifications out there. It'sno longer like a full core Java
developer, JavaScript developer,a Python developer and so on,
(20:20):
right, it matters more and more,which business applications can
you deliver result quickly,whereas the purest pro quo
developers, the numbers areslowly going down. You wrote
Dave Essex (20:30):
or CO wrote shortlist reports. There's just
something constellationresearcher and player does a lot
of these are on low code, nocode tools. One report was about
tools specifically for SAPsystems was about low code tools
and platforms. I think they'renot tied to any one vendor
ecosystem. How mature in generalare these tools?
Unknown (20:52):
Oh, people are building stuff of them every day and
running stuff every day. Right?And very, very interesting stuff
every day, right? I mean, yeah,so we do the shortlist quickly.
We try to help companiespractice what I do the research
enterprise acceleration, right,select your enterprise software
first faster. Don't do a longlist to this. But look at these
ones will we know these are goodvendors is when you publish the
shortlist twice a year. Andyeah, the SCP ecosystem is so
(21:14):
big while at the same time weknow SCP doesn't have enough
developers in house themselves,right? They're not building
software fast enough. That wasthe big relevation of sapphire
was the admittance of that. Yousee this across the industry?
Why do you see all the upheavalhas changed their partner
strategy, why they want to getpartners to something because of
nothing developers? So this way,we did a separate shortlist for
SCP system with five vendors onthem. And people are building
(21:36):
standalone real worldapplications. So I can make one
example for instance, a Neptunesoftware. It's only in the SCP
ecosystem example, with apublished case study. There's a
German service janitorialservice, why not do smuin. And I
wrote a case study about them.The margins in the business are
so low that the HCM softwarelicense is too expensive. And
(21:56):
three non coders, nondevelopers, business users and
communications departments andinteresting lingo that
communications and HR cametogether, but build a complete
HR solution on the platform. SoEmployee Self Service, manual
self service time entrance, nowthey move payroll to it, which
is unbelievable, right? So it'salso if I would be like invited
(22:17):
often right? What chores somealarm bells should be going on.
If like three business users canbuild an HCM solution good
enough for janitorial servicecompany. Yes, it might not have
all the bells and whistles andso on. But the UI is attractive
at once on the smartphones ofthe people, you can imagine if
you can't buy the license of anHCM system for these users,
right? Because the money beingmade, you can't provide them a
(22:37):
system so to bring your owndevice. So that shows the
evolution of low code, no codereally well. And obviously,
people clocking in getting paidshows it is a critical
application right within domainwhere normally you would never
say hey, no, we're gonna go toTime Attendance if planning and
attendance these things
Dave Essex (22:53):
like bringing back the days of homegrown systems
internally developed, maybe notfully, but
Unknown (22:59):
yes, no, no, it has to right. So so if you take the
macro level perspective, Ialways say the cloud era is like
the mainframe here. So I'm goodboth too young to live at the
beginning of the mainframe era.So 30 years ago, or IT guys were
telling me Do you know, when younegotiate hard with IBM, what
you would get, you don't get adiscount on the hardware, you
got to the developer? Yes, forfree, right, because the
(23:21):
hardware of the platform washeavy that IBM knew you have to
build a software. And now thecloud is here. And everybody
knows you need to build thesoftware to you cannot wait
right? This is the interestingthing, the the adoption, the
disruption process, too fast forsomeone to say, All right, we're
gonna use our old site clientswho have a system before move to
the cloud to SAP Oracle workdayand what else have figured out
(23:43):
how the best practices work, butyou will not be in business
anymore, right? So the answercan only be to build code. And
low code, no code is superimportant. From that
perspective.
Dave Essex (23:53):
I might have misunderstood you. In some
cases, people are developing theapp they need and it's not that
they're extending, let's say sfor HANA Cloud, or Oracle ERP
cloud, or is it both? Sometimesthey're doing a new thing? And
sometimes they are extending?
Unknown (24:09):
Yeah. So so this way, the ERP platforms, enterprise
application platform support isthree generic scenarios, the
classic integration, the classicextension, I still can't build
my own HR system. And then thebuild scenario where I build
something from scratch, whichruns in the ecosystem, of course
of that of that applicationwindow.
Dave Essex (24:28):
Is there any type of thing you might have mentioned
already, that these tools arebest for any anything that
they're not so good at
Unknown (24:36):
building features inside of them? I would not
necessarily because they're moreabout building things fast. Not
building things on this superexpensive, super scalable way. I
would not build a manufacturingplanning engine on this. I've
not played a payroll system onthem. Right. I would leave that
to pro code environment. Right.Fair. Scalability willingly
(24:56):
matters, massive scalability,but the clouds all The Solution
scale horizontally, yeah, we'regoing to have more users using
this, you can hopefully havemore business because we take
your business to your IT spend,and you're more than happy to
pay for it. Right. So that's,that's an interesting,
interesting part for it. So atthe end of the day, there's
nothing you should really shyaway from it may not have the
(25:17):
scalability you want. Butbusiness users, we use promo
code low code will not put a newpill, or any of the local
Dave Essex (25:24):
tools that are been introduced by this ERP vendors
have a truly homegrown We know,for example, that SAP build is,
I think, part not entirely basedon AP Guyver. Which we acquired.
Unknown (25:36):
Yeah, no, it really depends, right? Different
strategies everywhere.Partnerships, acquisitions, like
an SCP SCP took that path fromOracle is completely native
right built by themselves.workday is completely native
built by themselves in forestcompletely native built by
themselves, right? MicrosoftDynamics, you can of course,
discuss their using their lowcode, no code environment,
(25:58):
right. But just standaloneavailable as well. Right. So
power apps, we can argue whetherthis right, Salesforce has
equally thing to straddle,because they have the developer
environments and the thingswhich they put in their
platform. But that's somethingwhich Oracle has shown you can
do that, right. So you can haveJava as a pro quo developer
environment and visual builderand Apex, they have to right you
can choose because if you lookat Dora, c'mon packet more
(26:21):
rights under developers andapplications. Now there's a
little database. Andsurprisingly, the database by
the way, it's the oldest localenvironment at Oracle, right?
Older than Java before theacquisitions apex in the
database, where you can very,very quickly build tiny little
departmental originallypositioned business
applications. Is there
Dave Essex (26:37):
an advantage to buying the low code tool that's
offered by the ERP vendorinstead of buying one of these
other tools that from what Icould tell, and I haven't
visited their websites fundedyet that is supports more than
one system any disadvantages toand there any disadvantages?
Maybe they using like thehomegrown thing that visual?
(26:57):
Oracle has? But great
Unknown (26:59):
question that comes back to your enterprise software
landscape, right? If you havemultiple systems and automation
needs across them, you will tryto standardize this right? It's
very similar things. We see thisbank for the integration side,
right? You use integration toolsof your systems. So when does or
do you have a standalone thirdparty integration? So like,
Informatica, mule, soft, and soon, right? So the same thing is
(27:20):
here, only that we see thedemocratization of these tools,
you don't even know which lowcode, no code tools, somebody
might be running on departmentlevel, which he got from
Microsoft. It's also becauseMicrosoft is everywhere. You
could see that right? I can goalways to my browser and go to a
peon krcl Mendix out systems,which are the other vendors next
to Neptune on our shortlist, alittle promotion here, right and
(27:43):
use them and I don't even knowabout it, right. Because the
API's are published, I don't seethe API consumption IT security
backend side, right, and seestuff going through ports. But
as long as it's the secured way,which I opened up as it I can't
say anything about it. So itreally comes back to do you want
to have code assets for your butthe enterprise developers, but
for your end user developers tobe reused across multiple
(28:04):
platforms. And that can be quitea stretch, right? We're not that
mature in that space yet. But ifyou look to some of the more
established vendors, like apiano piano will provide your
front end to go into differentERP backends, right on the local
node side? So the answer iseasy. It's two words, it
depends.
Dave Essex (28:23):
If, if these things get popular, where could this
go? Like what could be if theytake off and reach their
potential? And people who usemore than them more and more?
What is the potential? Like whatcould this dude for, let's say,
the usefulness of enterpriseapps or just you know, digital
transformation, that kind ofthing?
Unknown (28:43):
It's massive, right? Because we always talk since
standard software today, wetalked about the long tail,
which the vendor whichconsulting budgets, IT teams
will never get to right. Now,all these users who are
affected, right, because if youadd up the use case, on Long
Tail, you end up with everybusiness user having two or
three scenarios where the longtail is not being automated
Well, right. So the for thesource MC, the empowerment and
(29:06):
enablement of long tailautomation, and what could
possibly go wrong, what couldpossibly happen, that will have
much, much more softwareenablement. And the newer
generations are more at riskthings, the millennials to do
things and unhappy ifsomething's there, and you give
them an outlet to buildsomething. So you will see much,
much more low code, no codeapplications in the space than
(29:27):
you probably ever dreamedbefore. But in the longer run
the low code, no codeapplications, all application
development follows this oldparadigm, which I can see being
replaced already, which is theuser has to show up to
something. Right? So the newthing will be is autonomous
software self driving software.Hey, David, Holger, you click
these things three, four timesthat automated this for you. Is
(29:48):
that okay? Oh, by the way, Iknow what you're gonna do. Let
me run this for you. Right. Soso it's the software looking
what people are doing andautomating things where you see
the spent man Your time on arepetitive basis, right? That's
low hanging fruit. But again,what could be wrong? The Big
Brother, whatever, lots ofthings, but it has to be the
point because, at least on theplanet, right, we're running out
(30:11):
of hands, right? All theautomation percentage, the hand
to machine automation has tochange. Right. And the OPEC,
first world countries, we'removing from six people working
supporting one retired person,to two people working supporting
one retired person, we can onlyget there through massive,
massive automation. And thetraditional thinking is all we
do this with software great,which still has to be built on
(30:31):
the artisan craftsmanship way ofsomebody showing up
understanding the tool, gothrough the blood, sweat, and
tears to get getting it lifegetting approved of it. And then
it's great, right? And then itbreaks three weeks later,
whatever. Right now, it shouldbe like seeing what is happening
in the enterprise? What arepeople doing, where they're
spending the time on one of thepetal paths? Where the strategic
process next fast, competitiveones? And how can that be
(30:54):
alternative?
Dave Essex (30:55):
That's a that's a pretty hopeful view of, and I'm
impressed by it by the way ofautomation, or the potential of
this thing to figure out whatyou're doing. And, you know,
tying it to the people payinginto the retirement system,
because I often take the darkerview, which is you know, it's
kind of eliminate jobs and allthat. But I, if I understood you
correctly, you're saying thatkeeping the business value going
(31:18):
and just sort of the engine ofthe economy going and then
supporting this larger group ofpeople like me, and you, I guess
that are going to retire? Yeah.Is that was that was that what
you're saying? That that's howthis automation rather than
hurting people and creatingpoverty, could
Unknown (31:37):
I err on the positive side? I'm an optimist from the
perspective, right. And there'sso many scenarios in the past
Remember, all these unemployedtruck drivers, which was
supposed to be there from theself driving truck and to
wherever self driving truck and,and look, Walmart's paying the
truck drivers 100,000 bucks todrive trucks around, right?
Because there's such a shortage.On the one side, I'm Bill Gates
(31:57):
has this great quote, what weoverestimate what's going to
happen in one year, weunderestimate what's going to
happen in 10 years. So which isI think, very valid from that
perspective. But then you lookat places where you see
unfavorable out generationalautomation, and Japan, right,
which is an overly old societywhere, alright, since 10 years,
seniors prefer robots to servicethem than a human, because the
(32:20):
robot is always available, rightis under my control, I can do
the plaque, they're not gonnasteal something from me,
thinking about the technology.So we need the automation, the
artificial intelligence, theself driving the autonomous
capabilities, to maintain andkeep doing what we're doing to
(32:40):
get the productivity levels, wethink about when one person
living retirement, and twopeople having to pay for it, and
living by themselves to writecompletely different ways how to
get taxation benefits, and soon, which is all providing on
the wall, which is comingtowards us. So I'm more than
happy to get any automation thatwe can get. And to try to add
people have to augment theirskills, right. upskilling and
(33:03):
staying up to speed with yourskill. So lifelong learning. You
better endorsed that, right? Ifyou have a job today, which can
be taken away by cheap, easyautomation, you better start
looking for but another job,then of course, the flip side is
that the hope is that theautomation games allow things
like a basic income, but peoplewho don't have the skills are
all people who don't have towork. Right would be great. We
(33:25):
will do podcast all day, David.
Dave Essex (33:27):
I must admit the chat GPT. Technology has been
getting a lot of discussion onmy my journalism friends and CO
live.
Unknown (33:35):
I'm very, very sure yeah. And all the generative AI
is very, very interesting,right? If you look outside of
Delhi and forgot the name of theother one, right, where you just
type a sentence and creates aunique picture for you. Right,
so So we're seeing that AI isdoing sort of creative things,
right? But at the end of theday, right? Isn't it more fun to
do a podcast and write a pieceabout this with your hands
(33:56):
without dictating it? Right?Which technology of Chet GPT can
listen to this and writes yourpost? I mean, hey, maybe you
don't tell whoever your boss isthat it was written by But why
don't go out, enjoy the niceweather write it,
Dave Essex (34:09):
maybe it'll be an assistant and then you do a
little cleanup. And that'llstill count as as a reason to
keep paying me. Am I exactly.
Unknown (34:18):
Well, it will be time to be perfect. will be long
time.
Dave Essex (34:21):
Yeah. Well, it's good day in on a positive note.
Holger, I appreciate your timeand always great to chat with
you.
Unknown (34:27):
My pleasure. Thanks for having me, David.
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