SAP just announced that it has been recognized (for the second year in a row) as a Leader in Gartner’s Magic Quadrant for Multiexperience Development Platforms. Yep. MXDP. Or, Mixed Up as I attempt to pronounce the acronym (always a favorite activity). However, if you are like me, that was a new acronym, which prompted me to investigate.
Per Gartner:
Multiexperience development platforms provide software engineering teams with a productive way to create rich, interconnected user experiences across web, mobile, conversational, digital twin, IoT and AR applications.
Further, Gartner qualifies this category with the following defining characteristics:
At a minimum, an MXDP must support cross-platform development and building of custom iOS and Android app binaries and responsive web apps, as well as at least four of the following:
- Firstly, progressive web app (PWA): Demonstrate PWA service worker support within the MXDP.
- Secondly, Chatbot: Demonstrate built-in chatbot framework or tight integration within the MXDP to external bot frameworks (such as Amazon Alexa/Lex, IBM Watson, Google DialogFlow or Microsoft Azure Bot Framework).
- Voice: Demonstrate built-in NLP and speech-to-text or tight integration within MXDP-to-voice platforms (such as Amazon Alexa, Google Assistant, Baidu or Tencent).
- Wearables and IoT: Demonstrate wearable and/or IoT support within a development tool (such as Apple Watch, Wear OS, Tizen, Harmony OS or HoloLens).
- Finally, augmented and mixed reality: Demonstrate immersive UI support within MXDP (such as iOS ARKit, Android ARCore, WebXR or Wikitude).
SAP’s announcement provided a few more specifics of what all encompasses the SAP MXDP offering.
The SAP MXDP offering
SAP’s multiexperience development offering consists of SAP Extension Suite, including the SAP AppGyver tool, SAP Business Application Studio, SAP Conversational AI services, the mobile development kit service, native SDKs for iOS and Android, and the SAP Fiori design system.
These two findings helped my understanding enough to translate into a brief description of what this is, and just maybe why you would care.
Enterprises across the globe are pursuing all flavors of digital transformation and digital strategies. Specifics will vary from company to company. The goals of these efforts are to drive new value for customers, employees and partners through digital experiences and exchanges. These experiences and exchanges replace traditional, more cumbersome and labor-intensive experiences and processes. Enterprises can save money, scale their business and unlock new business opportunities, among other benefits.
To enable these new capabilities, IT departments and consulting partners rely on an evolving set of modern technical solutions. These solutions deliver information and experiences suited to the customer or employee where they need it. It is provided in a format that makes it easier to use. At Mindset, this resonates loud and clear. Our core focus is to make the work lives of our clients WAY BETTER, through innovation, design and experience.
These technical solutions exist in product offerings across the enterprise software arena. Many can be found native in hyperscalers. There are open source alternatives. There are commercial, off-the-shelf alternatives. Some companies will create their own, custom alternatives. SAP has developed numerous solutions over recent years. Further, these solutions enable enterprise customers to deliver capabilities that meet these needs. Solutions like the SAP Fiori design system and services available through SAP Gateway are examples of products designed to solve these problems.
Platform
A key differentiator of an MXDP, as compared with various solutions mentioned previously, would be the Platform 
inherent in the offering. A platform provides the consistency and underlying connectivity that unlocks efficiencies to enable speed. Also, speed to market is a core value driver in digital experiences. Fewer technologies to learn, built-in integrations, and native accelerators are all benefits of a platform approach. Many of the core elements noted by Gartner in the SAP offerings are delivered as part of the SAP Business Technology Platform. The components run natively in the cloud. Additionally, they easily integrate with one another to enable faster delivery of digital experiences and service offerings. They ultimately drive new value opportunities across every industry that SAP serves.
In conclusion, we are heavily investing in BTP technologies and the application of value to the industries in which our clients operate. These technologies perfectly complement our best-in-class design and user experience capabilities. Woven together, we are able to deliver captivating mobile, web and digital experiences. Further, they unlock the enterprise data value in SAP systems. This is done through use of artificial intelligence, augmented reality, robotic processing (iRPA), chatbots, IoT touchpoints and an ever-growing ecosystem of connected business networks. Additionally, consistent building experiences across channels and touchpoints create value for employees and customers. Further, doing so with less effort and friction creates value for enterprises.
Similarly to BTP, the value of MXDP is in the platform. It additionally lies in the capabilities, simplicity and interconnectedness it offers. Finally, for those looking to benefit, SAP’s positioning in Gartner’s Magic Quadrant is noteworthy (and good news for you).
