New cloud services are set to give your business a major productivity boost

By James On Aug 5, 2022

Two technologies – integration platform-as-a-service (iPaaS) and enterprise low-code application platforms (LCAP) – are predicted to climb Gartner’s “Plateau of Productivity” within the next two years.

The “Plateau of Productivity”, the final stage of Gartner’s Hype Cycle, is where “the real-world benefits of the technologies are demonstrated and accepted”, where growing numbers of organizations feel comfortable with the reduced levels of risk, and the rapid growth phase of adoption is said to begin.

This lofty plateau is proceeded by the “Slope of Enlightenment”, “The Trough of Disillusionment”, “The Peak of Inflated Expectations” and “Innovation Trigger” (which houses fledging technologies such as quantum-computing-as-a-service).

Cloud technologies

iPaaS is defined as a suite of cloud services enabling the development, execution and governance of integration flows connecting any combination of on-premises and cloud-based processes, services, applications and data within individual or across multiple organizations.

Worldwide end-user spending on iPaaS is projected to total $5.6 billion in 2022, up 18.5% from 2021, according to Gartner.

“The shift to the cloud is boosting growth in the iPaaS market,” said Yefim Natis, Distinguished VP Analyst at Gartner. “iPaaS has moved to early mainstream adoption globally, reaching 20% to 50% of the global target audience who will use iPaaS offerings to integrate not only applications and data, but also ecosystems, APIs, and business processes.”

Examples of iPaaS vendors include Dell Boomi, SAP Integration Suite, Oracle SOA, and MuleSoft Anypoint Platform.

An LCAP, meanwhile, “provides rapid application development and deployment using low-code and no-code techniques such as declarative, model-driven application design and development together with the simplified one-button deployment of applications”.

LCAP technology is set to reach more than 50% of the global target audience, Gartner believes.

The analyst firm estimates that the LCAP revenue market will total $7.4 billion in 2022, an increase of 28.4% year over year.

The increasing business appetite for technology self-service results and the desire for “hyper-automation” will result in rapid growth and increasing maturity for the low-code platform technology market. Specialist LCAP vendors include Mendix, OutSystems, and Appian.

The predictions come as the overall cloud market is looking healthier than ever. The analyst house predicts global public cloud spending will rise 20.4% in 2022 to a total of $494.7 billion, up from $410.9 billion in 2021.

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