I'm preparing a presentation for my team that lists the various technologies we could use today for our business applications.
We have been historically building HTML applications (ASP and ASP.net) for the last decade and as part of the introduction I wanted to explain why we moved from Windows applications to HTML.
Our environment is:
- Business applications (OLTP mainly)
- Intranet
- Windows clients only
- Complete control on the clients' configuration (OS version/browser version/deployment of plugins…)
The only reason I could find is that in the late 90s, deploying a windows client application could end up in a mess (many different versions deployed, dll hell…). Web servers allowed deploying the application once and have all the clients updated simultaneously. The price to pay was a big loss in user friendliness and responsiveness and complexity added to the development job.
There are alternatives today (ClickOnce, Silverlight…) but a lot of my colleagues are now totally committed to HTML and the technologies that come along (Javascript/Ajax/Jquery/Css…).
I'm totally convinced HTML is great for Internet applications. My question is: at that time (late 90s), were there other reasons to move to HTML in a Windows intranet environment than just fixing deployment issues? (because it was trendy is not a valid answer…)
Thanks in advance
Best Answer
I would hope that by a decade you have a litany of your own reasons. Typically an intranet site best replaces a class of application known as client/server. There are some aplications that just don't make the transition as well. The following are my own reasons for promoting an intranet over a desktop application: