News

Telerik Courts Low-Coders with Mobile Development Platform

• By David Ramel
• May 18, 2015

Telerik today announced the addition of low-code features to its mobile development platform to let non-programmers help satisfy the exploding demand for enterprise mobile apps.

The subsidiary of Progress Software Corp. is known for its dev tools targeting cross-platform mobile Web, native and hybrid apps.

With the extreme need for more mobile developers, Telerik is the latest vendor to offer "low-code" or "no-code" functionality, typically coming in the form of drag-and-drop app creation, especially for an app's UI.

"With the latest release, Telerik Platform includes key enterprise elements to better enable low-code development options for both the developer and technical business user; enterprise Mobile Backend-as-a-Service] MBaaS for simplified data integrations and synchronization; and a native development framework to provide complete development flexibility," the company said in a statement.

Supplying the low-code functionality is the addition of its Screen Builder tooling.

With Screen Builder, the company said, "Users of all development skillsets can create and configure screens visually from a set of pre-defined templates, as well as easily and securely connect to enterprise data without the need to write custom code. With Screen Builder, users can generate functional hybrid and native mobile apps quickly. In addition, applications can be modified and extended at any time through an integration with Telerik AppBuilder."

The company's Web site states Screen Builder lets users build up to 80 percent of their apps without having to write any code.

Another new component to the Telerik Platform is AppManager LiveSync, which permits app updates to existing wares without having to go through an app store vetting process.

Telerik also added real-time analytics capabilities to its platform, which integrates user feedback with the developer app creation process. IT and development managers can monitor projects via dashboards and customized user reports.

On the back end, the MBaaS offering was enhanced with easier access to data stores and better support for offline functionality. The company said its offline sync engine addresses complicated data persistence and synchronization problems common to mobile app development.

"Further, as a result of its acquisition of Telerik, Progress has strategically integrated Progress DataDirect connectors within Telerik Platform," the company said. "By year end, Telerik Platform will have more than 20 data connectors to enterprise systems, including MS SQL, MySQL, Oracle DB, Postgre SQL, JDBC, SAP HANA, OData for SAP, Salesforce and more."