Gartner reports end users will look outside IT organisations for application development-- predicting citizens developers will build around 25% of new business applications by 2014.
Citizen developers are end users creating new business applications using development and runtime environments sanctioned by corporate IT.
Such end user application development (EUAD) is not new, but its risks (and opportunities) are only growing.
End users can build departmental, enterprise and even public applications, thanks to a number of converging forces-- changing workforce demographics, mature service-oriented architecture, simplified development tools and cloud computing delivering IT capabilities to end users with no IT assistance.
The analyst suggests IT organisations should build citizen developer support programs as a means to both adapt to EUAD's new realities and reduce any unnecessary risks-- predicting over 30% of enterprises lacking formalised citizen developer governance policies will encounter substantial data, process integrity and security vulnerabilities.
Such a support program would include sanctioned platforms, just-enough governance, enterprise service access and IT guidance to create a safe EUAD environment-- thus accelerating the exploitation of new technologies while manageing EUAD risks.