>I've been hearing a lot of talk lately about rich .Net clients replacing HTML/ASP on the web for business applications. I tend to agree that a rich client is preferable when it can be used. However, wasn't this a promise of Java? It has had several years to mature, but it seems it is still used primarily on the server. Why will .Net succeed where Java failed?


With .NET you can build real windows applications (Java too but...) and using Visual Studio its only a couple of click to create a client web service proxy.

The server will continue to be in the portrait, but the client will be a native windows app instead of a browser. And since installing a .NET app can be a simple "file download + copy in the folder + use", I think yes, we will soon see more richer web applications interfaces...