News

Low-Code Kony Quantum Boosts 'Digital Experience Development'

• By David Ramel
• March 14, 2019

A new product from low-code tooling specialist Kony has debuted, combining rapid application development functionality with the benefits of a "digital experience development platform."

One of the newer buzz-terms, "digital experience" has no official definition. Research firm Gartner says it's "a composite, rationalized and integrated set of technologies and services on which modern Web sites, portals, mobile apps and IoT apps can be built." Forrester Research says it's "software to manage, deliver and optimize digital experiences consistently across every phase of the customer life cycle."

Kony Quantum is described as a new brand for the company providing "low-code without limits," differentiating it from other offerings in the increasingly crowded no-code/low-code space that the company says provide a quick and easy initial development experience but fail to allow for more complicated constructs as projects evolve in functionality and complexity.

Company exec Burley Kawasaki likened the Quantum experience to a jetliner's autopilot in a blog post this week, saying it's similar to pilots letting an aircraft fly itself until they need to take control for something the autopilot can't handle.

In the Kony Quantum scheme, the autopilot is aided by artificial intelligence.

"Kony Quantum provides you with a 'Digital Autopilot' of sorts by enabling you to leverage advances in artificial intelligence, machine learning, a new integrated learning system and more to allow you to get started quickly and master new tasks as you need them; and new visual tools and editors to help speed up productivity by as much as 5-10x in areas like back-end integration or DevOps," Kawasaki said.

"However, when you need the full control and fidelity of a professional software development platform, you have all of the enterprise-grade, mission critical capabilities of Kony to power your Web and mobile applications."

A news release provided more information on the "assisted development using artificial intelligence" functionality.

Kony said that's provided by "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."

Other new features introduced in the Quantum platform include:

• 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 speed 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.
• 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.
• Cloud DevOps: cloud services that speed 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 Web or mobile enterprise apps.

The no-code/low-code arena has grown immensely in the past several years to meet the growing demand for enterprise apps amid a shortage of highly skilled developers, who mostly can pick and choose their positions these days.

The space is characterized by simplified rapid-application development, visual, declarative techniques such as reusable components, model-driven and template-organized workflows, drag-and-drop tools, process modeling, wizards and so on. In this case, one of the techniques used by Kony Quantum is said to be the use of "pre-built components in a visual canvas."