In the last decades, the technological progress has been remarkable. Nowadays the world is moved by software, with technology changing the way companies operate, there are some significant trends that can help established companies stay ahead. In 2021, IT spending on enterprise software is expected to amount to around 517 billion U.S. dollars worldwide, a growth of 10.8 percent from the previous year.

Software coding is not fast, 61.60% of the development companies established a common average developing time period of 4 – 6 months. Additionally, the programmer need have specific knowledge that sometimes can take a couple of months to learn. Knowing this, it is one of the reasons why Microsoft created its platform called “Power Platform”.

What is the Power Platform?

Microsoft Power Platform is a set of products to develop and build complex business solutions, analyze, and draw data visualizations, automate a business process, or build virtual agents for communication. All these products offer a platform in which no code is required to build the applications. The Power Platform is possible thanks to the Common Data Service (or CDS), which is essentially the underlying data platform that provides a unified and simplified data schema so that applications and services can inter-operate.

The Microsoft Power Platform is more than the sum of its parts. Connect them together—and to Office 365, Dynamics 365, Azure, and hundreds of other apps—and build end-to-end business solutions.

Core Components of Power Platform

• PowerApps is a high productivity, low-code development platform that enables anyone to build rich web and mobile applications.
• Microsoft Power BI is a data and analytics reporting tool that helps organizations bring together disparate data sets into reporting dashboards.
• Power Virtual Agents lets you create powerful chatbots that can answer questions. These bots can be created easily without the need for data scientists or developers.
• Microsoft Power Automate (Aka Flow) is a workflow tool that boosts business productivity to get more done by giving everyone the ability to automate organizational business processes.
• AI Builder is an AI toolkit that extends the Power Platform and integrates with PowerApps, PowerBI and Power Automate and provides no-code AI and ML capabilities.
• Dataverse (aka Common Data Services “CDS”) is Microsoft’s Cloud database technology. Microsoft Dataverse is the data backbone that enables people to store their data in a scalable and secure environment dynamically.

2021 Gartner Magic Quadrant

For 14 consecutive years, Gartner has recognized Microsoft as a Magic Quadrant Leader in analytics and business intelligence platforms. if you’d like to see in detail the Power BI features that helped again position Microsoft as a Leader in analytics take a look at this report here.

Power Platform Licensing

Microsoft’s strategy for Office 365 has always been to provide a comprehensive platform to allow ease of use and customization. As a result, Microsoft includes as part of Office 365, some of the capabilities found in the Power Platform. If you are licensed for Office 365 (Business or Enterprise plan), you get the following capabilities included as part of your license.

• PowerApps use right “seeded” capabilities, including the ability to create Canvas applications with standard “free” connectors.
• Power Automate uses rights “seeded” capabilities to execute flows within the daily api limits that leverage standard “free” connectors.
• Dataverse for Teams, aka a scale down version of the Common Data Services (formerly Project Oakdale) is used to build rich applications running inside Microsoft Teams within the size and constraints limits
• Power Virtual Agents for Teams, aka a scaled-down version of Power Virtual Agents, runs inside the Microsoft Teams client.
• Ability to customize SharePoint / Microsoft lists using PowerApps.
• Power BI professional if you have Microsoft Office 365 E5 or Microsoft 365

How to Get Started?