Press Release

Mendix 7 Harnesses Open Platform Ecosystem to Ignite Digital Innovation and Enable Rapid Delivery of Smart Apps

New rapid application delivery platform release powers innovative IoT, big data and machine learning applications with drag-and-drop connectors, a web modeler and more

ROTTERDAM, NL – June 8, 2016 – As CIOs, business leaders and developers convene in Rotterdam for Mendix World 2016, Mendix today unveiled Mendix 7, a major release that enables rapid development of next-generation Smart Apps. Leveraging the Mendix open platform ecosystem, Mendix 7 provides drag-and-drop connectors to best-in-class IoT, big data and machine learning platforms and services. Additional highlights include a web modeler that opens up the platform to a wider audience, a connector kit enabling easy integration, and automated testing and performance monitoring capabilities to manage digital innovation at scale.

Introducing Mendix 7: The Fastest and Easiest Way to Deliver Smart Apps

Emerging trends like the Internet of Things (IoT), big data and machine learning promise to reshape entire industries and business as we know it. However, due to the complexity and technical expertise currently required to leverage these technologies, most organizations haven’t even scratched the surface in terms of unlocking their full potential.

Mendix 7 provides the fastest and easiest way to build Smart Apps that improve operations, deliver differentiated services and create new business models. Leveraging Mendix’s open platform ecosystem, the release provides drag-and-drop connectors to best-in-class IoT, big data and machine learning platforms and services. Without writing any code, developers can seamlessly leverage these component services to make connected things and insights actionable, delivering new experiences for customers, partners and employees.

Specifically, Mendix 7 enables out-of-the box connectivity to:

  • AWS IoT – a managed cloud platform that lets connected devices easily and securely interact with cloud applications and other devices
  • AWS Machine Learning – a service that guides users through the process of creating machine learning models without having to learn complex ML algorithms and technology
  • IBM Watson:
    • AlchemyVision – an API that can analyze an image and return the objects, people, and text found within the image
    • Concept Insights – a set of services for performing content recommendation and exploration
    • Text to Speech – a REST API to synthesize speech audio from an input of plain text
    • Visual Recognition – a service allowing users to understand the contents of an image or video frame
    • Dialog – a service enabling developers to automate branching conversations between a user and an application
  • LoRaWAN – Low Power Wide Area Network with features to support low-cost, mobile, secure bi-directional communication for IoT, M2M and industrial applications
  • MQTT – a lightweight messaging protocol for small sensors and mobile devices, optimized for high-latency or unreliable networks

Smart Apps Transform Operations at AFI KLM Engineering & Maintenance

AFI KLM Engineering & Maintenance (E&M) provides a good example of how the Mendix platform enables rapid delivery of Smart Apps. Within a couple of weeks, and as part of its “MRO Lab” innovation program,  the company built an equipment tracking app that pulls data from the KPN LoRa network, providing engineers a live look on iPads at the locations of each piece of airline maintenance equipment. By increasing the efficiency of engineers, this innovation is expected to not only generate significant cost savings and process improvements but also impact the customer experience in the end through more reliable, on-time flights.

“Everybody in our industry is in a constant fight to improve efficiency and reduce costs,” said Hans Luijendijk, director of Business Enterprise Architecture & Strategy at AFI KLM E&M. “Our equipment tracking app showed us just how powerful a force  like the Internet of Things can be. We’ve just scratched the surface in the ways we can use the Mendix platform to digitally enable our engineers and transform our operations.”

Additional Mendix 7 Release Highlights

Other innovations in Mendix 7 include the following:

Mendix Web Modeler

Web-Modeler-Editor-ToolboxDigital innovation requires rapid experimentation, frequent iteration and close collaboration between business and IT. The Mendix Web Modeler ignites creativity by opening up the platform to a much wider audience. Whether it’s a business user quickly building a prototype or a developer sharing an application design with business stakeholders, the online modeler makes it easier than ever to share and collaborate on application models.

“From our first broker portal project to our ‘Digitize the Enterprise’ initiative, Mendix has enabled LV= to innovate faster by facilitating business-IT collaboration and an iterative, test-and-learn approach,” said Rod Willmott, fast track innovation director at LV=. “We believe the Mendix Web Modeler will allow us to take collaboration to the next level, enabling us to bring business users more easily into the development process. In this way, we hope we can do more in parallel and allow our business users to rapidly transform ideas into innovations.”

Mendix Connector Kit

The new Mendix Connector Kit provides a set of tools that make defining integrations a breeze, including:

  • Data Mapper – Visually connect incoming XML and JSON messages to your domain models in Mendix, and vice versa
  • Native REST – Natively call any REST API straight from Mendix Microflows, and map the result of the call (XML or JSON) on your domain model
  • Java Extensions – Major enhancements to Mendix’s Java action approach enable developers to build connectors to external services that integrate natively in visual microflows.
  • Database Connector – Model connectivity to external data sources without writing a single line of code

Native Mobile Experience

Mendix 7 continues to build on Mendix’s industry-first, fully model-driven offline mobile support. New features include Smart Sync enabling users to select when offline data is synced, enhanced push notification services and an expanded selection of Native Widgets, including Add to Contacts, Add to Calendar, Native Share, Estimote Beacons, Navigate To, Splash Screens, DeviceId and Vote.

Mendix Application Test Suite

While testing & QA is an essential discipline in all software development projects, functional and regression testing can be challenging for apps that go through iterative cycles of development and go-live. Developed in partnership with Mansystems, the Mendix Application Test Suite is a full-blown test suite for embedding functional testing in your application lifecycle. Users can easily automate cross-browser functional testing based on keywords linked to user stories.

Mendix Application Performance Monitor

Nothing erodes the user experience like subpar performance. The challenge is that finding the root cause can be a daunting exercise. Developed in partnership with Mansystems, Mendix Application Performance Monitor offers a rich set of capabilities to prevent performance issues early in development cycles and quickly address them if they manifest in production.

“Digital innovation happens when you bring people with ideas together with the technologies needed to bring them to life,” said Derek Roos, Mendix’s CEO and co-founder. “Mendix 7 is the most open and complete platform to drive digital innovation, enabling business and IT to turn ideas into applications faster and easier than any other approach. We can’t wait to see the new and unexpected ways our customers, partners and developers use Mendix to digitize their operations, customer experience and business models.”

    About Mendix

    Mendix, a Siemens business, is the only low-code platform designed to address the full complexity of enterprise software development challenges. Deploying point solutions to departmental problems solves things at a micro level—but if you want to make a significant impact on your business, you need to go bigger and build powerful portfolios that move the needle sustainably and strategically.

    With Mendix, enterprises can take on more complex, transformational initiatives by engaging everyone in capturing requirements, forming ideas, and embedding value assessment throughout the lifecycle of the software portfolio.

    Focus on the right problems while relying on governance and control to avoid unnecessary risk. Mobilize your organization. Build the change readiness muscle. And when the next big idea drops, turn it into an outcome quicker.

    More than 4,000 organizations in 46 countries use the Mendix low-code platform. An active community of over 300,000 developers has created over 950,000 applications – and counting.