>>Frankly though I have to say that .NET on the desktop is a much harder sell to me than .NET on the server. That's really IMHO where .NET shines - Web apps, Web Services etc. not the desktop.
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>What do you see as the best option for building the frontend for desktop apps going forwards?
I'm not sure. I guess I think for the moment for most apps WinForms is still the best choice, or if that's possible Win32 apps for typical utility applications - small and lightweight.
Shrug - it's a tough call there really aren't any great solutions out there anymore for the desktop - no vendors are putting any effort anymore into building desktop applications...