Mendix is First-to-Market With Expanded 'All-in-One' Low-Code Platform; Launches Pre-Packaged Industry Apps for Even Faster Adoption of Low-Code in the Enterprise

BOSTON, Sept. 1, 2020 /PRNewswire/ -- VIRTUAL GLOBAL EVENT - MENDIX WORLD - Mendix, a Siemens business and global leader in low-code application development for the enterprise, today announced the launch of its expanded all-in-one low-code platform. This extends the reach of low-code into new domains, empowering developers of all skill sets to solve an ever-increasing set of business problems. Mendix's all-in-one low-code platform builds on its core foundation of model-driven development, enhanced both by product innovation and a curated collection of pre-packaged industry-specific offerings that accelerate the delivery of solutions for common use cases.

Mendix 9 is the first all-in-one low-code platform on the market and applies the core low-code principles of abstraction and automation to adjacent domains: Mendix Makers can now easily access data from across their enterprise; leverage expanded AI tools to improve application quality; compose "intelligent automation" applications quickly; and offer multiexperience solutions on the full spectrum of devices and touchpoints, all delivered on a flexible, cloud-native architecture.

The new industry-specific pre-packaged solutions that complement Mendix 9 will accelerate time-to-value for enterprises. These solutions will enable enterprise development teams to benefit from the collective knowledge of Mendix and Siemens, and their extensive ecosystem, to solve common problems within their industry.

All-in-One Approach Expands What Mendix Makers Can Accomplish

The Mendix 9 release expands the universe of what developers can accomplish via the platform's newly minted all-in-one architecture. The benefits accrue to the full spectrum of makers —  professional developers, business domain experts, and, most simply, anyone in the business with access to Mendix's low-code tools.

One key area that Mendix 9 unlocks for makers is data integration with Mendix Data Hub. Data Hub removes the complexities of data integration and transforms how people across the enterprise discover, understand, use and govern data for application development, data analysis, and other activities. Data Hub's key functionality is the ability to expose data and services into the searchable Mendix Data Hub Catalog. For developers, this makes a set of rich metadata discoverable inside Mendix Studio and Studio Pro; entities from remote systems appear as if they are local, and can be incorporated into projects via drag-and-drop. Data Hub connects to data from Mendix applications, SAP, Siemens Teamcenter and Mindsphere, and many other common data sources. Additional Data Hub capabilities were also announced today.

Another key area bolstered by Mendix 9 is the easy creation of Intelligent Automation solutions. With this capability, and accompanying starter templates, developers of all skill-sets can digitize workflows, eliminating paper processes and standalone tools. Further, developers can incorporate any platform feature into these solutions, such as AI-based services, consumer-grade UI, and data from any enterprise source, making these solutions not just digital versions of legacy processes, but smart and scalable solutions optimized for a variety of use cases and end users.  

Enterprises can deliver the most engaging mobile application solutions with Mendix 9. End users have come to expect a range of mobile applications, from rich native mobile applications with iOS and Android device integrations, to lightweight progressive web applications that don't require App Store downloads. Until now enterprises have struggled to deliver all these variations, which require staff with specialized skill-sets and redundant development efforts. Mendix 9 allows developers to automatically deploy both React Native mobile applications (for iOS and Android), and progressive web applications ("PWAs"), without duplicating work. These solutions are built on a single application model, sharing frontend design and backend logic, and can be built by developers without mobile expertise.

Native mobile capabilities were also enhanced to address a specific challenge faced by early adopters of augmented reality: the steep learning curve for developers. Mendix 9 incorporates Augmented Reality (AR) tools out-of- the-box, a standard set of AR widgets for native mobile now enables developers to easily create a user interface, including 3D objects, images, and marker detection. With this capability, enterprises can now finally build solutions that realize the promise of augmented reality for enterprise use cases like enabling field technicians, optimizing warehouse operations, and enhancing consumer retail experiences.

Mendix Assist, the AI-augmented development feature already adopted by more than 60% of professional Mendix developers, now includes another major capability this year. The Mendix Assist Performance Bot, available in Mendix 9, enables developers to create highly performant Mendix solutions by analyzing applications against known best practices. The bot can suggest changes, or automatically refactor applications, to ensure solutions don't fall into typical anti-patterns that deprecate application performance.

A final highlight from Mendix 9 addresses a critical success factor in Mendix projects: effective collaboration across people with varying technical backgrounds. As teams grow to have more individuals contribute to development, collaboration needs to extend to include version control and change management. Visual conflict resolution shows granular differences in team members' contributions to a project and then allows teams to choose which changes to merge, with a single click. In this way, teams have visibility into how each developer approached a piece of the solution differently, and a simple way to implement the one that best meets the goals of the project.

Introduction of Pre-Packaged Industry Solutions Further Extends the Power of the Platform

Industry Solutions is a new unit within Mendix chartered with developing and sourcing pre-packaged solutions that address the needs of specific verticals. Using the knowledge and expertise of the Mendix and Siemens ecosystem, these out-of-the-box solutions implement best practices and common patterns.

The first solution being launched is for Field Service Management and is designed to provide visibility and actionable insights to teams responsible for field service management. Additional solutions slated for release span industries and use cases, including an adaptive insurance portal, CAD/CAM analytics, and customization of "one-off" product lots for consumer retail manufacturers.

Mendix CTO Johan den Haan said: "Mendix 9 is a major evolution in the world of low-code application platforms, bringing key functionality into what is now the industry's first All-In-One low-code platform. Mendix Data Hub solves one of the stickiest challenges every developer faces - data integration. With Mendix Data Hub, all of an enterprise's data resources are at the fingertips of the development team, with appropriate enterprise control and governance. This, plus advanced AI and workflow capabilities, industry-leading options for mobile, augmented reality, and more, make Mendix 9 a major step forward to help enterprises create and deliver every kind of digital product and experience they can imagine. I'm also very excited about the pre-packaged Mendix Industry Solutions we're announcing today, and looking forward to helping our customers digitalize their operations faster than ever before."

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Background

In a pandemic-disrupted world, software is the new lifeblood of our daily lives and the connective tissue holding together the global economy. However, traditional software development takes far too long and very often fails to deliver the results business needs and users love. Even prior to COVID-19 there were simply not enough professional software developers in the world to build all the software currently required. The global pandemic has accelerated and exacerbated what was already a software and business crisis. Enter low-code software development. Low-code from Mendix is a powerful enterprise-grade visual development approach empowering citizen and professional developers to make cloud-native applications more than 10X faster for web and mobile using drag-and-drop components and model-driven logic – all through an intuitive graphical user interface.

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About Mendix

Mendix, a Siemens business and the global leader in enterprise low-code, is fundamentally reinventing the way applications are built in the digital enterprise. With the Mendix platform, enterprises can "Make with More" by broadening an enterprise's development capability to conquer the software development bottleneck; "Make it Smart," by making apps with rich native experiences that are intelligent, proactive, and contextual; and "Make at Scale," to modernize core systems and build large app portfolios to keep pace with business growth. The Mendix platform is built to promote intense collaboration between business and IT teams and dramatically accelerate application development cycles while maintaining the highest standards of security, quality, and governance — in short, to help enterprises confidently leap into their digital futures. Mendix's "Go Make It" platform has been adopted by more than 4,000 leading companies around the world.

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