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| Source: https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/power-pages/introduction |
For me, the biggest news to come out of the Microsoft Build conference this week is the introduction of Microsoft Power Pages. Power Pages is the newest member of the Power Apps family of the low code/no code development platform. It represents the evolution of Power Apps portals (previously Dynamics Portal and before that AdxStudio acquired through an acquisition).
Here is the intro video:
In Power Pages, you create websites based on templates, either a general default design template or a template geared toward a particular use case or industry. If Microsoft creates a large number of such templates which are broadly attractive to its customers this will be one of its differentiators.
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| Choose a Power Pages template to create a new website |
The samples that are available in preview are the default design, meeting scheduling for a financial institution, after school program registration, new employee onboarding, and building permit application. This indicates that Microsoft will be thinking of several customer verticals including not only commercial customers such as financial institutions but education and government.
You can create new sites in either a trial or a production environment, assuming you are a Microsoft customer already.
What is the difference between Power Pages and Power Apps portals?
Power Apps portals were designed as a way of presenting data from Dynamics 365/Power Apps solutions which use Dataverse as their data repository. Power Pages extends this model to a larger number of customer scenarios, allowing you to build data-driven websites for many functions, even those not centered around typical CRM scenarios (customer portals, supplier portals, or support portals).
How do Power Pages relate to SharePoint?
Years ago, long before the rise of cloud computing, Microsoft promoted SharePoint as a tool to develop websites with little coding. You could use SharePoint to create static or dynamics websites as an alternative to programming with the Microsoft development tools such as ASP and .NET. As SharePoint evolved the emphasis shifted to its strength in intranets and other internal sites. In 2015, for instance, Microsoft discontinued SharePoint Online websites.
Power Pages fills a similar niche that SharePoint public sites once served, building data-driven websites with low code. As you might expect, Power Pages benefits from better performance and features than SharePoint offered, so it can scale for large user counts and accommodate more complex business rules.
What about Website Hosting Providers such as Wix and Squarespace?
Power Pages positions Microsoft more closely as a competitor to low code cloud website hosting services such Wix and Squarespace, but this does not seem to be the primary goal of the new product. Microsoft is not likely to be the first choice for standing up free or inexpensive personal or small business websites, especially publishing static pages.
The greatest benefits of Power Pages will be for companies and other organizations that are committed to the Microsoft development platform in general and Dataverse in particular. Power Pages will allow them to make their data more accessible to new groups of users, especially external users such as customers, stakeholders or constituents.
I have not seen Power Pages pricing, but I would expect the model to be similar to Power Apps portals, that is based on usage such as pageviews and logins.
What Next?
To learn more, sign up for a free trial. Power Pages is in preview now so stay tuned for more details.
If you prefer to learn by video, Carl de Souza has a great video walkthrough of Power Apps Pages:
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