>>From around the globe. It's the cube with digital coverage of AWS reinvent 2020, sponsored by Intel and AWS. >>Welcome everyone to the cube live and our coverage of AWS reinvent 2020. It's good to have you. I'm your host Rebecca Knight today, we are joined by Mira Vaidhyanathan. She is the product leader for Amazon honey code at AWS. Thank you so much for coming on the cube Mira, my question to be here. So tell our viewers a little bit about Amazon honey code. This was a product that was announced in June of this year. What was the impetus for it? What were you hearing from customers that made you realize there was a need for this? >>Yeah, so Amazon honey code is a fully managed service that allows customers to build powerful mobile and web applications without the need for any programming. So customer has to, they have a growing need, uh, to manage data over time, manage workflows that involve multiple people that facilitate complex business processes. And today we're doing this through spreadsheets and mailing, these spreadsheets via email. And what ends up happening is you have a whole lot of spreadsheets with different data, and it usually falls to one person to consolidate all the information and create a source of truth, um, organizations that have the resources to build custom applications do so, but quite often, these applications just don't get built. And, um, employees in these businesses are managing with these, uh, band-aids set of tools that I just discussed. And, um, so what we wanted to do was to build a, uh, no code, uh, app building platform that customers can use their existing skills to build the apps that they need for their day-to-day lives. So no programming required. You bring the skills, you have to just, uh, you know, those of using spreadsheets to be able to build, uh, apps to manage, um, all of your productivity and collaboration needs. So we tried to do with honeycomb. >>What has the reception been since you launched back in Sharon, what are, what are you hearing from developers about how it's changed the way they're doing their business? >>Customers are very excited that AWS now has a solution in this space. And from the very first day, from the day of launch, we've just seen a lot of interests from organizations of all sizes, both domestic and international and customers have been building apps to solve various problems. In fact, the very first app that a customer has shared with us was, uh, a COVID tracking app for HL care center in New Hampshire, where, uh, you know, parents had been standing in line for tens of minutes waiting to drop off their children and filling out a form at the entry point. And, um, this, uh, customer built an app over a weekend, uh, and was able to it reducing the drop-off time two minutes. Um, we've also seen a great deal of activity in our community forum, where customers are exchanging ideas and learning from each other. And what they really like about honeycomb is how easy it is to spin up an application without needing to think about databases or servers or deployments. And they also like that by building just one app it's immediately available in both web and in mobile. And, um, of course the best of all is the fact that all of the data is up-to-date and they're able to make informed decisions based on the data in these apps. Um, customers have also been very forthcoming about, uh, feature ideas and requests, and that is continually feeding into our roadmap. >>So I want to talk about some other use cases. You mentioned the childcare center in New Hampshire, which sounds as though you helped save these parents a lot of time and alleviate some of their stress. What other kinds of use cases are you here? >>Sure. Uh, the types of apps that we've heard about include, uh, like leave and vacation requests and organizations, um, a team has built a hotel management, a booking system, contracts management for an unemployment center, sales opportunity tracking, um, status reporting across distributed teams, which is a reality that we're all living today. Um, more specifically we, uh, uh, we know of a customer who has a 6,000 person team, um, and they built an app to manage service costs requests. So this is a systems integrator and they're using this app across 10 partner teams, uh, across the world. Um, we've also heard about a coffee trader who has built an app to manage, uh, their coffee orders across both domestic and foreign markets. And previously they were doing this via email and, uh, through spreadsheets. So those are the different cases that we've heard about >>What kinds of internal interest are you having within AWS for honey code? I'm told that there is a great deal of interest within the organization itself. >>Absolutely. Yeah. There's been a lot of interest that at Amazon, uh, there isn't a day that goes by that I don't hear from a new team that has a use case that they need to build an app today on honeycomb. Um, and these are usually, you know, use cases that customers have been solving with spreadsheets or our internal ticketing tool, uh, because they haven't had the resources to build their own custom app. Um, there, our HR team, um, uh, one of the HR teams at Amazon, in fact, it's built an app that is consolidating across four different tools, so they can get an accurate picture of what is going on with, uh, any particular team, you know, head count, how many roles are still to be filled, et cetera. Um, another example is a marketing team that is managing all of their marketing campaigns, uh, through a Honeycutt app, so they can see how campaigns have we already executed this month. >>How many still remain, what are the results from these campaigns, all of this, uh, in one place. And, um, in fact, in the honeycomb team itself, uh, we, uh, uh, use honey good for, uh, managing all of our internal processes from our product roadmap to, uh, program management, to managing and tracking our goals. And because we're also distributed these days, um, we seem to be spending up on an app on auto practically daily basis. In fact, today the team is running a hackathon and all of the ideas for the hackathon were, um, gathered on a honeycomb app. And then later today we'll be doing demos and voting, uh, on the best time, uh, hackathon project. So it's, it's given rise to a lot of new ideas and, uh, a lot of new ways in which, uh, we're, we're able to work together collaboratively, >>Well, an app a day. I love it. Um, so it does sound like the, kind of the collaboration you're describing and the ways in, within the transparency, particularly during this, these COVID times when people, as you say, we're working, dispersed teams are remote. Um, there's a lot of isolation. It does seem like it's, it's really a revelation. What, you're, what you're doing here. >>Yeah. It's been really, uh, it's been a learning experience for us as well, you know, working remotely and trying to figure out how do we keep each other up-to-date on what we're doing. How do we make sure that, uh, you know, we, we find ways to replace those hallway conversations, those water cooler conversations as we like to call them. Uh, and, and so we find ourselves, uh, interacting via these apps a lot more, trying to keep everyone abreast of what we're doing by updating project status. And so on, in addition, of course, to, you know, uh, uh, meetings, um, online on video, uh, it has certainly helped us all stay on the same page. In fact, um, honeycomb the product launch itself was managed via a honeycomb app. And normally that's something that, you know, most of the teams either build a custom app for, or manage, uh, via a spreadsheet and probably hundreds of post-it notes. >>So the, the product is relatively new, but you had some announcements last week at AWS reinvent. Tell us a little bit about those. >>Yeah. And the last few weeks we've had a slew of new announcements and they fall into three major areas, really, um, integrations, uh, identity and app building features. Um, for the first we announced, um, integrations with Amazon app flow and Zapier to integrate with external data sources to push and pull data into and out of honeycomb. Um, we also announced the ability to set up and log in with multiple identity providers, including Okta and Google, to make it easier for our customers to, uh, manage, manage user accounts, um, as well as the first single sign on and last but not least, uh, we've announced several features to make it easier for app builders, as well as the end users of these apps. Um, not only to make the apps more functional, but also more delightful to use. And these include, uh, features like border styles, uh, conditional styling, as well as easier ways to sort and filter your data in your app screens. >>You used the word delightful, which is, which is absolutely an adjective that so many of us associate with Amazon. Tell us a little bit about how you are working to make these, uh, the, the user interface more delightful, as you say. >>Yeah. We're continually adding new features to make it easier. So, you know, every business user doesn't have to think like a UX designer. So we're, we're trying to, um, think about the ways, uh, you, you, you look at all the productivity apps today, you, you want certain sets of data to pop up in your app. Uh, for example, you know, if the status of a project is red, not only do you want it to notify the appropriate parties, but you also want that information to pop up, um, in an app. So it's very easy just using a very simple expression. You can set up the rules, the conditional rules to say, Hey, if the status is red, then, you know, make sure or status is delayed, then pop it up and, you know, bright red. So it catches my eye. The next time I look and look at an app. So we're trying to find ways to, uh, you know, thinking about all of the business use cases, trying to find ways to help customers make the information, um, pop better in their apps. So they're, uh, so they, you know, deliver more value, um, in businesses >>Up here in Amazon app flow. What are the business use cases in terms of those and what are they, what are available now? >>Yeah, so, uh, both, uh, integrations with Zapier and app flow enable customers to build even richer applications because now they're, uh, you know, previously they were building applications just based on the data that the sitting in, in honeycomb and with these integrations. Now they can bring in data from other sources, programmatically. So these include integrations to apps like Salesforce or Slack, JIRA, Amazon S3, et cetera. And, um, this makes it possible for business users to use Zapier or app flow, uh, to, to build, um, powerful integrations. So I'll give you an example. Um, let's say a sales team can use, uh, a honeycomb to build an app to process their sales inquiries. And, uh, instead of dealing with emails and spreadsheets, what they can do is use Zapier to automatically pull in requests that come into their website. Um, and this can be pulled straight into a honeycomb app, which can then generate a notification to the sales manager to approve a quote. Um, and then the quote can be generated and emailed to the customer. All of this is made possible through, um, and integration with, uh, with Zapier. And you can integrate with Amazon app flow, uh, to pull in data from Salesforce. So it makes it possible for customers to, um, use more up-to-date information and their apps making it, uh, driving better decisions and more informed decisions. And what >>Type of new templates are now available. >>Yeah. Uh, back in June, when we launched, we had about 10 templates for common use cases in businesses. And since then we've been regularly adding more to that repository. Uh, our most recent additions to the template library include, uh, the ability to run meetings virtually, which we're doing eight hours a day, these days, instant polls, a collaborative brainstorming template, um, as well as applicant tracking. And we'll continue to add more in the coming months. >>There's just no question that this is such a high growth area. Uh, Gartner estimated last year, that low-code no-code approaches will represent more than 65% of application development inside companies by 2024 foresters also projecting a $21 billion by 2024. What I want you to look into your crystal ball here and just tell us a little bit about what you're expecting in the next six to 12 months and what, and what's what you're hoping for the future for Amazon honey honeycomb. >>Uh, we remained focused on, uh, you know, helping business users solve problems that were previously out of their reach because they either lacked the resources or the skills or support from it. Um, honey code apps have the scale and security that customers expect from an AWS service. And over time, uh, we expect to add more features that make it progressively easier for business users to develop without needing how to learn, how to code. And we will also expect to add features that are required by it, departments for adoption in enterprises, >>Mirror. What have you hearing from customers about what they, what they're wanting to hear from you just w I want you to close us out here and, and give us what you're hearing, and then what your best advice is for managers who are thinking about, uh, trying to adopt some of these low-code no-code approaches and are, and are interested in what they're hearing in terms of what you're saying about the collaboration and transparency that these, that these tools provide. >>Yeah. Um, the, these, these tools make it possible for, uh, anyone in any business, you know, HR marketing program managers, product managers, really, um, anyone to, uh, build applications that are very specific and tailored to your business needs. And these, because these applications don't require the typical process of, uh, you know, selecting a database, selecting the storage layer, selecting all of these things. Um, and they're deployed almost immediately, like as soon as an app is built, it's available to the end users to use it makes it possible for the applications to evolve with your needs. Um, in fact, this is, this is what I see everyday with the apps that we build for ourselves is, you know, it works this week next week. We're like, Hmm, what if we tried something slightly differently? Uh, because our, our, um, you know, we, we we've become more efficient, our techniques evolve over time. >>Uh, and th th th the situation changes as we're seeing every day, uh, uh, in COVID times. So it makes it possible to just, uh, to, to have the applications grow with you as your business grows and evolves. And, um, so that's, what's really exciting for me with a honeycomb is, um, uh, things that were, uh, you know, usually, uh, out of the reach of, of business users now, uh, you know, they're able to build these applications and they use the exact same skills that, um, they might have used with spreadsheets. So, uh, that's, what's really exciting and we're going to continue to listen to our customers. And, uh, we know that business users want to be more productive and want easier to use tools. And that's what we'll be working on >>Mira bitey enough. And thank you so much for coming on the Cuba. It was a real pleasure talking to you. Likewise, thank you so much. And thank you for tuning into the cubes coverage of AWS reinvent 2020 I'm Rebecca Knight stay tuned.