Category 1. Platforms that allow the creation of Enterprise-grade Business Applications (collaborative, scalable, feature-rich, multi-user SaaS):
– AppExchange by Salesforce.com
– QuickBase by Intuit
– CogHead
– …possibly LongJump
– …3-5 others

Category 2. Platforms that allow the creation of simple data management and form-based apps (quick and easy replacement for Excel/Filemaker/MSAccess for individuals and small teams)
– DabbleDB
– Zoho Creator
– WyaWorks
– …20-30 others

Category 3. Platforms that allow the creation of simple web apps via Mashups (combining multiple sources of information into one view via web services; mostly for consumers)
– Yahoo Pipes
– Microsoft Popfly
– Teqlo
– Dapper
– …others in development

Regarding Category #1, where LongJump appears to fit best, the goal of these platforms is not to replace the need for software developers. Rather it is to provide business users with more power to solve problems themselves. It’s about empowering users with new tools to address their specific business needs as quickly as possible.

There will always be a need for software engineers, I don’t believe any of the vendors mentioned here dispute this or believe that they will be replaced by online DIY app environments. However, there are many cases where it is simply much less efficient and economical to requisition IT or other professionals to build or buy a solution when a counterpart can be constructed online to do an adequate job in a fraction of the time, for a fraction of the cost, by that very business user who is closest to the problem being solved. It is these situations that DIY app platforms are designed for.

I would though that a sound knowledge of business processes is essential and an understanding of business logic as it is applied in a rules based engine. Enable’s approach can be found at http://www.enableapps.com.au. We’re from Melbourne Australia.

thanks

cool logo.

/Quoted for Emphasis.

As always, the phrase: “good, fast, cheap — pick any two” comes to mind. Sure, you can do a quick & dirty web app on the cheap using tools like this. But to suggest that it’s just as good as something a real developer would create is a joke. Or a lie — you can decide which.

How many small businesses would hire a professional developer to organize email responses to a few customer questions a day? What about the company party invitations? There are tons of issues like this that people use Excel for and it is a horrible solution! Also, businesses buy packaged solutions like Microsoft CRM, invest $50k or more, use 20% of the functionality and find it is too complicated and never gets adopted.

At QuickBase we’ve built a big business for Intuit by targeting these business problems and applying Intuit’s focus on ease of use to enable business users to solve this group of problems. If Dell needs a new order entry system they shouldn’t be thinking about QuickBase or any of these products, but if they need to track a multi-department project to implement a new product category, we’re there for them.

I appreciate the skepticism, but this space is getting crowded because a solution is needed and real businesses are forming. We’re making money because we are providing value. If there wasn’t a need people wouldn’t buy.

I have no doubt that this is becoming a huge space in the coming years.

Bill – bill at quickbase.com

Someday there will be a bridge between your favorite framework: Rails / Symfony / Hibernate / Etc. and a tool like this.

There are already enough “high level” languages to address the range of programmers from hobby coders to full time coders (Ruby/PHP -> Java/.net)

If solutions are to move to the next level of abstraction then the solutions need to be built at a higher level with the components broken down into stages:

New Information Acquisition ( Data Input/Import )
- New Information Forms
- Questionnaires
- Import of Data using standardized import templates with deduping/updating capabilities

Business Rules
- Simple Logic Statements that dictate how data is processed and when (Filemaker Pro’s Model is a good starting point)

Summaries and Reports
- Drag and drop creating of Reports (Very much like Crystal Reports)
- Report Scheduling
- Report Bursting (creating multiple reports from the same master report which have unique permissions and data for each)
- Ability to maintain the presentation pages for these which can be embedded into other CMS’ like Squarespace
- Export to various formats (embeded html/RSS/XML/RDF )

Workflow/Change Approval management
- Ability to pause for approval during different parts of the workflow through the solution

Note that none of these solutions approach the problem the way a coder would approach this problem – it is more like the way Quicken/Quickbooks approaches the problem of collecting, organizing, processing and reporting lots of information.

In a perfect world, users create their “app” by being guided through the stages of the solution and hopefully having more value on the other side of the experience.

I also think a great solution would try to encourage reuse of data and logic wherever possible by encouraging Yahoo! Pipes like connection of your ’solution’ which others. If all works well, niche solutions should develop, evolve and create more value for the ecosystem than any one person could create. This would let users focus on the piece that matters most to them – their unique data and business rules.

As for the people who think these solutions are not needed, I would say that there are lots of people like myself who understand how a solution should come together – but just don’t want to spend so much time in a traditional programming language and instead want to quickly build a proof of concept that can evolve into a workable solution and if the need arises can have parts of it replaced with more enterprise class code as scalability needs increase.

So, whatever you do, don’t try to start a company like this in Columbus, Ohio. People are more concerned with starting fast food companies than they are tech companies, or they want a bunch of PHDs working on bio-tech from the university…

Try talking about http://www.quickbase.com. This company was purchased by Intuit a year or so back and I have used it for 5 years. Wonderful tool.
Since I dont know what longjump really is I assume they are trying to be like Quickbase??

I don’t agree with your comment in the slightest, and I think you may be confused.

These apps are created with programming. The website is essentially, from my understanding, one large app that allows people to create their own applications. Just like a WYSIWYG program like Dreamweaver or Frontpage, all of the programming is hidden behind the scenes.

Correct me if I’m wrong, but I’m pretty sure you are confused.

Noah
Galvanize Me

Am I missing something?

Why would you cover this service when all they really have is a boring landing page? Or conversely, why would they give you a sneak peak when they aren’t ready to accept users from the wider Internet community?

I’m confident this will be another example of a TC-spike without any substantial continued traffic to the site covered. I don’t think I’ll remember “Long Jump” in even a week’s time…

Booerns, imo!

Thanks for the great post. We really appreciate the time you took to speak with us. We were really excited to show you where we are and what we’re readying to bring to the market. This is certainly an interesting space with a lot of opportunity to make a real difference in changing business and information as we know it.

Just to clarify…

Today, we’ve opened up LongJump in Private Beta and we’re looking for end-users and business users to work with through this period. Anyone who is interested can go to http://www.longjump.com.

While at this point we are currently focused on working with end-users, we haven’t forgotten about the developers. LongJump is in the process of preparing compelling tools that the developer community can leverage to drive their business. Developers will be a critical component to the success of LongJump.

Again, thanks. And as we move forward, we will be sure to keep everyone in the loop.

Designer wasn’t a track star

It requires more advanced users to architect a complex app. However, even advanced users benefit a great deal from Caspio, for being able to bring their vision to life very very quickly. We currently have thousands of deployed apps out on the web, mostly deployed on customer sites as widgets.

Frank Zamani
Founder, Caspio Inc.
http://www.caspio.com

@Greg
I agree that sometimes we need to just hammer out some small application but usually that’s like a Wufoo form or an HTML site or maybe a blog or wiki. I’m not usually trying to construct a database backed application if I don’t know what I’m doing. If you’re building an application that people will use on the Internet there are also security risks as well that people have to be aware of. Even seasoned programmers run into these and how well do these tools address those issues?

That is the market segment we address with Zoho Creator. We have some real passionate users in Zoho Creator, ranging from real estate professionals to school principals. “Professional” programming languages like Java or C# are way too complex and way overkill for what they need.

So the posters who talk about “Is my sister going to create the next GMail with these” got that right – that is not the intent of these types of tools.

http://www.vign...ignette+Builder

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