>Hi y'all,
>
>I'm thinking of building a web app and am a bit uncertain as to what path to follow with this as there are several options available (aspx, silverlight, wpf, etc.).
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>It's not a complicated app and I thought at first to write it as a stand-alone app, but I want to follow the "software as a service" model (aka leased apps) and users are apprehensive of paying a monthly fee for something they download and install in their computers, whereas online, this seems to be the norm (scheduling apps, CRM, etc.), not to mention that maintenance and support would be far easier for me if I go this route than to have to deal with at least 3 different operating systems and other problems users might come up with.
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>Please keep in mind that I know nothing about the new technologies yet - today's the day I'm about to start learning this stuff (Want to become an expert fast? Get in way over your head.).
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>At first I thought that silverlight might be a good possibility, but I wonder if I'm not alienating my potential market, who is not terribly computer-savvy and likely to have 2-year old computers on average, so this is what I'm up against... decide the platform, what version of visual studio to use is also a consideration (2005? 2008? 2010 is out of the question - can't deal with my own problems on top of a beta).
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>OK, I know these questions are about to open a can of worms, but I'll be very thankful for all your input on this!
>
>Thanks!
>
>Alex

Why 2010 is out of question? VS 2010 Beta 2 and .Net 4 has been recently gone public as a "go live" release. I think if you are not fluent in VS then VS 2010 is the best ever. Besides .Net 4 support is something I would think of. Even beta 1 was nice and beta 2 is stable enough. It it easier than using the previous releases (especially if you think of WPF and SL and EF, Linq ... ).

I just delivered an SL (simple with data services) application and I have never been as pleased before with ASP.Net (or other web I did before) applications (probably in SL it is harder to do many things but end result is better IMHO).
Cetin