End-user application developers (EUADs) have always been around, but market research firm Gartner says that tight budgets and the growth of simplified application development tools could mean that these “citizen developers” will build 25 percent of more of apps by 2014. However, Gartner’s Ian Finley cautions, “In the past, EUAD posed limited risks to the organization because it was typically limited to a single user or workgroup. However, end users can now build departmental, enterprise and even public applications. While this change enables organizations to empower end users and releases IT resources, it also heightens the risks of EUAD.”
The firm encourages enterprises to create “citizen developer support programs” and predicts that one-third of enterprises without these programs will “encounter substantial data, process integrity and security vulnerabilities.” According to Gartner’s Eric Knipp, “If end-user developers are ignored, and they build applications without help or knowledge from the IT organization, then there is a real risk that they will fail miserably and create an unplanned burden for IT.”