Enterprise grade low code platform arrives from Kony

Kony Inc has a lot to talk about these days. Along with recently being named a leader in The Forrester Wave: Low-Code Development Platforms for AD&D Professionals, Q1 2019, they also sent notice to us that they launched Kony Quantum, a new brand with enhanced capabilities for its next-generation low-code app development platform that aims to deliver rich digital experiences.

Kony Quantum combines the ease of use and speed of low-code application development with the power of the leading enterprise-grade digital experience development platform. Kony Quantum enables businesses to build mission-critical web and mobile solutions for both employees and consumer-facing apps on a unified platform, resulting in greater speed and productivity.

According to Gartner, “The technologies used for creating applications have always been of critical importance. But the rise of digital business is driving ever-increasing demand for software creation to automate new and existing processes, in new contexts, and often in rapidly changing situations. This puts enormous pressure on IT leaders to dramatically increase application delivery speed and time to value. Vendors are responding with low-code solutions that aim to increase productivity by reducing or avoiding the need for specialist ‘code’ by scarce enterprise IT developers.”

“Companies are struggling to keep pace with the demand for innovation and the pace of digital,” said Thomas E. Hogan, chairman and CEO, Kony, Inc.  “While low-code platforms help bridge the dearth of developer expertise and accelerate innovation, the majority of existing low-code platforms lack the agility and depth to span applications from the simplest, yet powerful, to the most enterprise-grade and complex.  Kony Quantum is uniquely capable of providing that unified platform for rapid development and innovation yet also capable of delivering applications that demand the highest levels of UX, security, performance, and back-end integration.  Kony Quantum is the epitome of Low-Code without Limits.”
 
In a recent Forrester blog titled, "Why You Need To Know About Low-Code, Even If You're Not Responsible for Software Delivery", John Rymer, vice president, principal analyst, Forrester, stated: “Low-code development platforms are emerging as a key strategy to accelerate app delivery to support digital business transformation. And they have the potential to make software development as much as 10 times faster than traditional methods. Low-code platforms employ visual, declarative techniques instead of traditional lines of programming. Both developers and non-developers can use these products, and they require less training to start. Common features include reusable components, drag-and-drop tools, and process modeling. Individuals or small teams can experiment, prototype, and deliver apps in days or weeks.” 

Kony Quantum provides the following unique features to make it easy for users to build powerful web and mobile apps quickly:

• Real-time visual design and development canvas
• Rich library of pre-built micro apps, templates, component user interface elements, and data connectors
• Design imports from Sketch and Photoshop
• Business logic and workflow editor
• Single project and development approach across web applications and native mobile apps
• Visual data integration capabilities
• Industry-leading app security and scalability

“When we look at Kony Quantum, it really comes down to a couple of things for us. It's the speed. It's the ease of use where we can just do a drag and drop to actually build apps instead of coding. It's the availability on a global basis. It's efficiency. It's all the parts and pieces that we were looking for to say, ‘Did we really make the right decision in going forward?’ And I can say, Kony Quantum checked off all those boxes for us,” said Mike Edwards, vice president of Global Digital Services, Amway. Amway operates in 100 countries and regions around the world.

Kony Quantum is the only enterprise-grade low-code platform with native omni-channel support for delivering the best possible experience, performance and security by taking full advantage of the underlying platform and device capabilities, including:

Low-code Progressive Web Apps (PWAs) – enhanced features for building responsive, modern web apps based upon the PWA standard that deliver native-like user experiences across all popular mobile web browsers. Kony Quantum developed PWAs scored a full 100 out of 100 on Google’s Lighthouse validation process

Low-Code Native Mobile Apps – enables developers to build truly native iOS and Android apps faster-using standard, native user interface widgets. Kony Quantum provides easy access to all of the underlying native device features for building modern and immersive apps.

In addition, the following new capabilities of Kony Quantum sets a new standard in the market for low-code platforms:

• Faster Backend Integration –low-code tools such as a Data Panel speeds integration to backend systems and automatically provides test services to develop against stubs even when the backend is unavailable.
   
• Auto-generation and Auto-mapping – developer productivity features for automating common developer tasks such as auto-generating forms and controllers and auto-mapping front-end logic to backend APIs.
   
• Preview and Debugging Enhancements – a wide set of developer productivity enhancements that speeds up the ability to quickly preview on a local device or web browser, including the ability to in-line debug the app from the device or web browser to optimize code.
   
• Assisted Development using Artificial Intelligence (AI) – smart agent technology integrated into the Kony Quantum IDE which is powered by Artificial Intelligence and Machine Learning to intelligently assist the developer throughout development. This includes things like smart component recommendation from the Kony Marketplace, automatically searching for resources or tips to assist your current task, and more.
   
• Integrated Learning System – interactive guides and learning system inside the IDE that supports developers at all skill levels to become quickly proficient with Kony Quantum and build their first web or mobile app; and also to continue to acquire more advanced skills over time; and Cloud DevOps – cloud services that speeds up the full DevOps lifecycle, including an automated Cloud Build service that removes the need for local SDKs or build machines; and one-click publishing into a secure, private Enterprise App Store service for your web or mobile enterprise apps.