>>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.
>
>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...