Don't write off rich client apps, or why a J2EE application was rewritten
Recently I had discussion with a friend about a project he was working on. He said he was converting a J2EE application to a .Net application. Naturally my first question was why ?? I was glad to hear that someone was doing commercial .Net development but I was curious what the ROI would possibly be. If you have already written an application and it works why rewrite it ?
The answer was interesting. The reason they had gone with J2EE was that they thought they wanted to have a thin client and no client install.
However, the users wanted integration with Office and the whole user experience just did not work with them having to go into one application, saving a document and then starting the web application. He said that .Net provided the office integration and a faster development time.
I said why not wrap the existing application and add a new rich client frontend ? He said the problem was the application was poorly written and slow. So instead of trying to put a new face on the existing application they are rewriting it.
I found the whole story very interesting. The fact that is a story of a migration from a Java application to a .Net application is really just a side issue. For me it shows that users still need rich client applications that integrate with their existing applications. Also that bad design and architecture now means that when your users requirements change or you find you have misinterpreted them you may well find yourself back at the drawing board with a lot of explaining to do.