Written by: Account Executive, Roger Strain
Microsoft’s Power Platform
Microsoft’s Power Platform is the tech giant’s number one competitive offering, setting it apart from its competitors by combining the value of three cloud services that empowers citizen developers, democratises IT and fuels rapid automation and transformation across industries.
Microsoft faces competitors on all cloud services offered, including machine learning and AI, office productivity solutions, CRM, ERP and data visualisation. Where a competitor lacks, however, is an offering that leverages all these capabilities, rendering the Power Platform a leader in the field of technology innovation.
The Power Platform comprises Power BI, PowerApps, and Microsoft Flow – three applications designed to work together seamlessly, enabling anyone to effortlessly build applications, automate workflows and gain data-driven insights and visualisations.
Further driving competitiveness and innovation is the drive from Microsoft to infuse all products with AI, and the Power Platform is no exception. As an example, PowerApps features an AI builder that is a plug-in into Azure’s cognitive services. The AI builder serves as a connector that allows organisations to build machine learning models with almost no knowledge of this specialisation area – this strikingly reflects how Microsoft is democratising technology for an inclusive revolution.
The Power of PowerApps
Amazing innovations are unleashed with PowerApps; from workflows that connect supply chains to collaboration apps that break barriers across the world. PowerApps places the power of application development in the hands of the masses and is attainable by everyone in terms of abilities and price.
To render technology innovation inclusive to all, Microsoft is carefully considering user feedback and recommendations, especially when it relates to affordability. In October this year, Microsoft released a PowerApps–per–app plan and a Flow–per–business process plan, making great strides in further empowering citizen developers by rendering these capabilities more affordable.
Both the new PowerApps and Flow licensing plans seek to make it easier for organisations to get started and scale as their unique needs grow over time, whether that’s implementing one scenario or a single business process, without having to purchase unlimited premium plans for all their users.
Changes to Microsoft’ licensing plans, coupled with the continuous drive to make development capabilities accessible to all through the Power Platform, reveals the opportunity for organisations that have outgrown and reached the limit with existing tools to utilise the powerful digital transformation capabilities of Microsoft’s cloud services at an affordable rate.
Imagine a world where technology innovation is fueled and driven by all – an inclusive economy of revolutionary technologies. This is Microsoft’s mission – to empower citizen developers. Currently, the technology at the forefront of this revolution is the Power Platform with citizens requiring little to no knowledge of IT code to develop innovative applications that can streamline business and personal processes and requirements as needed.
Microsoft Partners Driving Citizen Developer Empowerment
To showcase the effective simplicity and powerful impact of PowerApps and empower more organisations to reap the benefits of this transformative solution, top 1% global systems integrator, Mint Group, hosted a PowerApps event in Cape Town on October 30 to showcase the capabilities and explain the new licensing requirements to its clients.
Due to the demand for and success of this event, a PowerApps session will also take place in Johannesburg.
Organisations are hungry to learn more about the Power Platform and reap the benefits that it offers. With the Power Platform, organisations can build their own solutions in a simple and efficient manner to solve the challenges they face or reap available opportunities. It is easier than ever before to create applications with PowerApps, connect processes and actions with Flow, and make data-driven decisions accordingly with PowerBI.
Even a simple app can have drastic benefits to an organisation’s bottom-line in terms of time efficiency, productivity increase and insights to drive further innovation – data is gold. More complex requirements stress the need for Microsoft partners to serve as advisories to the inclusive technology revolution and help organisations build product roadmaps that can scale and continuously deliver transformation.