Windows Application Development Can Survive the Cloud Era

The Cloud Has Not Taken Over Completely

A long time ago, most of all software development was focused towards on-site installation. Then came the time for running complex web applications, thanks to many others and Microsoft for ASP.NET. Now the “Cloud” is over us and it will remain for a while (longer than what came before it) until we find something new and flashy and realize we are capable of something even more advance.

However, time for on-site installation has not passed us completely. A complex web development or hosting an application on the Cloud cannot solve all of the problems out there. Two main reasons come to my mind why on-site installation of mostly windows development will continue. They are related to size of a company / business and security and privacy concerns that many online applications, such as custom ASP.NET hosted on a server or applications running on the Cloud still face.

As a developer, we must understand the problem first, along with any privacy and security concern before offering a solution. I’m currently working on two projects, windows service that connects to an API and download orders and print them on a printer within few seconds of someone placing an order. Other project is .NET MS Excel integration for a health insurance (see screen shot below) who wants to use all of the capabilities of MS Excel along with what windows application (C#) can do for them. Feel free to contact me for more information on Excel Addin. We cannot solve any of the above problems with an online tool or hosting an application on the Cloud.

I believe running applications on the Cloud offer more benefits than running application on a dedicated server. However, this does not replace windows development and on-site installations, at least not for another 10 years.

Mohammad Waheed