Preamble:
Looking back at the past 2021, zero-code development has become a trend, and it has swept through various industries with an unstoppable trend. The outbreak of the new crown epidemic has accelerated the digitalization process of enterprises, and low-code technology has been proven to be the preferred development technology in line with the current enterprise digitalization after a large number of case verifications. Advanced low-code platforms are also redefining the way businesses digitize now and in the future.
As a zero-code player in the past 10 years, I have witnessed the decline of old players represented by form servers, and the rise of new players based on cloud services and light application construction. We spent a lot of time analyzing and comparing the advantages and disadvantages of new and old players, continuously cultivating R&D technology, iterating again and again, and finally had our own mature low-code products. If the Internet is a river and lake, then the zero-code field also has its own rivers and lakes, in this river and lake, there are many schools of thought.
Under the wave of digitalization, there will be more and more zero-code vendors, but is it really so easy to make To B products? What kind of team can really make a good adaptation product? Today, I want to talk about this matter.
Before talking about this, I will mainly analyze the digital products in the field of zero-code development that are more well-known on the market from three aspects: application scenarios, zero-code products, and processing power.
1. Application scenarios
We divide the digital office scenarios into three categories:
The first category is personal-level applications. A typical scenario is the data collation of tables, such as sorting out personnel rosters and recording sales details. Nowadays, we usually use Excel or online documents to do this, and this kind of application is mostly discrete scenarios.
The second category is lightweight collaborative apps. Typical scenarios are the collection and organization of forms, as well as process approvals. There is a lightweight relationship between services, and most of these scenarios are point-to-point linear scenarios, which do not involve long business lines and associations with different conditions. For example, epidemic prevention filling and collection, form issuance and reporting, process approval, etc.
The third type of application is called complex digital application, also known as relational application. It is mainly based on the enterprise management model of various business flows, and this kind of application is the most typical application in enterprise management. For example, in the manufacturing process of a manufacturing enterprise, the whole process management starts with sales and ends with finance, so it is also called relational application.
In fact, the first two types of requirements are included in the requirements of the third type of scenario, which is a link under the enterprise management model, and the third type of scenario is solved, and the first two types of requirements are solved.
2. Zero-code products
All software vendors actually put forward their own solutions around these application scenarios, and whoever has the best comprehensive solution will be more competitive.
In terms of the technical architecture of the product, we divide all the products into two categories, one is based on the design of table controls, and the other is based on the design of drag-and-drop controls. These two technical architectures are the main models adopted by the current zero-code development platform, and the difference in technology selection has also led to great differences in the application scenarios.
Workfine tabular design
Jiandao cloud control design
Chenzhe directly uses Excel spreadsheets and relational databases to design business systems, and it should be the earliest manufacturer in China to do zero-code development platforms (around 02 years). At that time, the front-end Internet technology was not mature enough, and the C\S model was mainly adopted, and it had a certain competitiveness. Its product advantage is that it can basically handle all the management business related to the table, and combines the functional advantages of the table and the database.
But the disadvantages are also obvious, the design and application rely on Excel, and the table controls are the core technical elements of this type of product, but they have not been able to master them from the beginning to the end. Fifteen years later, with the rapid development of front-end Internet technology, the product selection of enterprises is biased towards the B/S architecture, and this kind of product is slowly becoming marginalized.
That's why he was born first and had his own highlights, but he didn't continue to be a great company. It's not so much that Chenzhe is defeated by other products, but that the backward software development productivity can't keep up with the growing business needs of users.
In the typical products of Qinzhe, there are many zero-code development platforms named after "a table", collectively known as form servers, which are operated according to the business of Qinzhe's restaurant at that time, and several of them were opened next to it. These table server products also do not have their own table controls, and basically rely on Microsoft system products: Excel or the obsolete serverlight technology.
Although the interactivity is not friendly enough and the table control is not autonomous, the ability to deal with the digital problems of enterprises is very prominent, and it should be the most suitable solution to the digital problems under Chinese management at that time.
It's just that when dealing with these issues, the core table control problem has not been well solved. In the 20 years since the birth of Qinzhe in 02, basically no manufacturer has been able to be independent, and I have learned that the team has tried to make its own form in the past 20 years, and the transformation of the B/S architecture has basically ended in failure.
It wasn't until around 17 years that two products were born: Workfine and movable type. Their platform has its own tabular controls for this type of product. The company to which the movable type grid belongs has its own self-developed table control product, called SpreadJS table control, which has good technical advantages. However, it may be that the team is from a technical background, the product solution needs to be optimized, the threshold for use is higher than that of other products, and it is essentially a product for technical personnel who need code implementation.
Workfine's table control is deeply integrated in the Workfine platform, specially designed for this development platform of web tables, the team is a project-born, long-term on-site front-line business problems in all walks of life after the transformation into a digital product, in the product solution has obvious advantages.
Jiandaoyun is a product of Finesoft, which is a typical control design product, and its development is also very stable. Finesoft started with reports and BI, initially they did not do reporting and business systems, and the emergence of Jiandaoyun provided basic support for their reports and BI tools.
The accumulation of customers and scenarios in the early stage has provided a good verification and paving for the development of its products, and it is a very successful enterprise in making tool-based products. Jiandaoyun is also very clear about its product positioning: a lightweight application building platform. This also reflects from the side that the technical threshold for complex applications is relatively high.
From the technical form of its products, it cannot do complex digital applications. Because of the drag-and-drop design of control and the use of non-relational database in the backend, the design process cannot meet the needs of highly personalized style design or deep relational logic design, which are the key points for dealing with complex relational business.
Image from search engine screenshot
So why do they use a controlled-style drag-and-drop design and a backend non-relational database, which is mostly due to business model and technical barriers.
Drag-and-drop controls have a much lower technical barrier to entry than tabular controls. As mentioned earlier, in the past 20 years, only Workfine and movable type can be independent of table controls, and the research and development cycle and technical threshold of a table control alone have discouraged most manufacturers;
The reason for the use of non-relational databases is mostly driven by business models, because everyone initially adopted the SaaS model, while non-relational databases have advantages in the SaaS model, and of course, the advantages of the cloud also bring the disadvantages of privatization. Therefore, when we are making product technology selection, there are advantages and disadvantages in many places, and we cannot have the best of both worlds, and we are constantly exploring in the trade-offs.
(The graph table control can directly copy the table information, and the design form of the drag-and-drop control is single)
In principle, the second type of products represented by Jiandao Cloud belong to homogeneous products, such as Mingdao Cloud, Qingliu, Partner Cloud, Tritium Cloud, etc. Using drag-and-drop control + non-relational database technology, this technology selection can only handle lightweight digital scenarios, so the most complex cases they can show are cases like invoicing or CRM, and buying any of them will not buy the second one. With the popularity of zero-code, the competition should become clearer and clearer.
Image courtesy of workfine
At present, there will be obvious scene differences between the first and second categories of products, so there will be an independent market space between the two categories of zero-code products, and there will be obvious differences in form, which cannot be replaced by each other in a short period of time.
In fact, the most important thing to make this kind of product is the polishing process.
Manufacturers and users are a synergistic symbiosis and mutual achievement relationship. When manufacturers can accumulate enough users and application scenarios, then they can in turn meet the actual pain points of more users for the purpose of polishing the products more finely. If it is only on paper, many times the product will not be able to land, or the application will not last long.
But I think it's the real big fish in products with tabular design. Lightweight applications will have relatively weak user stickiness and a low threshold. Complex digital applications have high user value and strong stickiness. At the same time, most of the digital office applications of enterprises are continuous and relational applications under the management model.
Tools that can handle complex applications, if they solve the details of interaction, and accumulate rich and in-depth cases, to achieve the effect of out-of-the-box and on-demand adjustment, then the glue to the scene will be stronger, and the demand for lightweight applications will be slowly diluted.