Microsoft Launches Drag-And-Drop App Builder Popfly
Microsoft just demoed on stage at the Web 2.0 conference a slick Silverlight application development service called Popfly, which just opened up in beta. Popfly lets anyone, even non-coders, create web mashups without writing a single line of code.
Context & Ripple Effects
Popfly first surfaced in May 2007 as an internal experiment: a Silverlight-based canvas for wiring web services into mashups without code. Five months on, Microsoft has moved it to public beta and put it on stage at the Web 2.0 conference, where Steve Ballmer is also fielding questions from John Battelle and pitching an acquisition pace of up to 20 companies a year — Popfly is the consumer-friendly face of that broader push.
First-order effects
- Non-coders get a working tool today: anyone can assemble Silverlight mashups in a browser, which makes every published Popfly page a de facto installer prompt for the Silverlight runtime Microsoft needs to seed against established web plugin bases.
- The Web 2.0 stage demo puts Ballmer in front of exactly the audience — web-native developers and investors — that Microsoft's desktop franchise does not naturally reach.
Second-order effects
- If the SharePoint integration path holds, Popfly stops being a toy and becomes a lightweight front-end generator for corporate portals, pulling business users toward Microsoft's server stack rather than standalone site builders.
- Every mashup built on Popfly locks its creator into Silverlight, so adoption among hobbyists directly shifts where third-party widget and data-feed developers choose to publish their endpoints.
Third-order effects
- The bet underneath Popfly is that application creation moves down the skill curve — from programmers to office workers assembling blocks — and whoever owns the drag-and-drop surface owns the next generation of line-of-business software demand.
- For Microsoft specifically, the pattern points toward a portfolio strategy: rather than one flagship product, a steady cadence of small acquisitions and experiments (the 20-per-year pace Ballmer outlined) testing which no-code surfaces stick before committing platform-level resources.
The trend: Web platforms are racing to turn end users into application builders, with drag-and-drop mashup tools like Popfly as the opening move in what looks like a long shift of software creation away from professional developers.