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Friday, September 23, 2011

Dynamics GP Web Client - Update

Jay Manley at the Inside GP Blog, very articulately, explains the selection of Silverlight as the technology for GP web client. As he says – "

What is great about the Windows 8 operating system is that it supports multiple styles of applications, and we are making a conscious decision to develop on the one we feel is best suited for business applications.

I wrote about this briefly yesterday as well -  In Windows 8 you have two modes: metro and classic.  Metro is for exciting responsive new apps that you can use while sitting on a designer couch. Classic is the Windows of spreadsheets and complex applications that we've used in our day jobs for years.

To clear things up further, I have this diagram from BUILD

build1

 

Here,  it is an updated image - The part in GREEN is the metro style apps, and the part in BLUE is for most enterprise apps. 

win8-new-platform

 

On the green side there will be the casual apps (games, social networking, content/media apps), and on the blue side will be all the enterprise apps. This might change in a few years, but that’s how it probably will be for the next 3-4 years.

Just like no complete ERP apps fit in on the iPad App Store or the Android Store, ERP apps will probably not fit into the Metro mode. Of course stripped down versions can exist, however, a complete ERP app requires a different platform. 

As of today, Silverlight gives you – a rich presentation platform + the deployment/update story of an HTML application. You also have a clean logical separation – pure data is coming from the server and a presentation layer that is built on top of that data. Add to that the fact that Silverlight lets you easily integrate your existing .NET codebases (or even native code via PInvoke) and it makes it the best choice for business applications.

Here’s a quote from the Telerik Blog

At Telerik we still believe in Silverlight, and we are betting on it. We are not only continuing to sell our existing Silverlight controls, but we are also continuing to invest in the ongoing development of new controls for Silverlight.

I think the Dynamics GP team is on the best track ahead in architecting the web client.

Hope that helps!

More resources :

Where do LOB / productivity apps fit into Windows 8?

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Thanks,
Jivtesh (Microsoft Dynamics GP MVP)
Microsoft Dynamics Certified Technology Specialist: GP 2010
Blog : www.jivtesh.com
GP Help Website : www.gpwindow.com (Over 10,000 Dynamics GP Resources)

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