Welcome to Tomorrowland: Where Developers Can Finally Roam Free

Featured article by Miguel Valdes Faura, CEO & co-founder, Bonitasoft

Nothing great has ever been achieved upholding “business as usual.” That’s the vision and mindset required when attempting to create a new kind of business environment where technology serves as the catalyst for true efficiency in every industry, at every level. As business needs constantly change, so too must the applications that run those businesses. Traditionally, this has been understood, but not so easy to enact, due to rigid BPM systems holding back developer ability to be nimble, creative and flexible in their business processes. Simply stated, up until now, developers lacked freedom. That’s not the case anymore. Here’s why.

A New Freedom to Choose

The truth is that most old-line BPM technologies prevented developers from having the freedom and flexibility they needed to build highly personalized applications. They took a “no code” approach and touted it as a feature while expecting developers to “make do” with stale, generic user interfaces and rigid forms. Within the future of process development, there is no longer room for “zero code.” Instead, BPM implementation will move forward and be successful by empowering developers with the right tools and offering the ability to send those tools and write code whenever and wherever it is needed. This freedom allows developers to create business applications that are built for change. These “living applications” – which allow users to apply changes, updates and improvement over time – are a product of innovation that separates business processes, business data and user interface into one usable platform. Like I said – we’ve finally arrived.

A Newfound Freedom from the Status Quo

Open source is the catalyst for the “human-centric” approach to BPM technology where by “democratizing” BPM it becomes easy to use. This freedom can only be achieved by breaking free of “the norm” in an industry dominated by commercial vendors that supply their technologies via lengthy and complex re-engineering projects and charge exorbitant prices for products and consulting. While open source technology itself is what drives this approach, its spirit is equally important for it promotes transparency, collaboration and excellence in a manner that challenges existing visions and efforts. It’s a breath of fresh air for developers who no longer face restriction, but also to the front end of the house who can easily make adjustments to adapt to the market and save money by erasing the high maintenance costs and lengthy update cycles typically dished out by the big boys.

A New Freedom of Flexibility

An innovation-driven BPM-based application platform further differentiates itself from the status quo by offering the unlimited flexibility developers need. It delivers powerful, easy tools for highly personalized interfaces so developers need not have to settle for boring, uninspired forms and designs. This is in part a product of the worldwide community of dedicated open source users and evangelists who are constantly driving conversations around business process, application development and working through technical issues one step at a time. The best part? By just contributing, you are delivering value right back to the community. With that sort of support by your side, it’s pretty hard to lose.

We live in a world that runs on software and applications. We run software everywhere — on local machines, in massive data center, in the cloud, personal devices and more. If you are in business today, you are by default in the software business where gaining an advantage is directly tied to how fast you can deliver solutions. Gaining an edge on the competition in this requires the ability to adapt quickly to change and continually improve. This all falls on the shoulders of developers to deliver as they don’t just build processes, applications and interfaces that drive business – they are also called upon to continually make sure they are up to date. Lucky for businesses and developers alike this task is easily achievable. Why? Because “tomorrow” is isn’t just imminent – it’s here today.

Miguel Valdés-Faura is the CEO and co-founder of Bonitasoft, a software company with the mission of democratizing the Business Process Management.