Summary

Windows form clients provide an alternative presentation layer for an enterprise application. Although Web form clients offer a great deal of flexibility, they lack a lot of the rich client-side functionality that Windows forms can provide. An enterprise application has many requirements that typical desktop applications do not face, such as reliability, scalability, and usability.

Implementing an enterprise application as a desktop solution requires much of the same detailed planning that a Web application demands. Having an application framework in place can help minimize errors and encourage reuse. More important, a flexible application framework that can support plug-in views can support adding new views to the application after it has already been deployed. This level of flexibility supports application customization and thirdparty integration, which are key factors in encouraging application adoption. Before defining an application framework, you need to plan a solid architecture. This chapter presented the classic MVC architecture supported by the MDI user interface methodology to help define that underlying framework.

Business productivity counts on the reliability of an enterprise application and often cannot afford downtime attributed to bugs . Enterprise applications need to support a wide variety of users, from the nontechnical to the Information Technology (IT) professional. Windows forms can effectively address the needs of enterprise application development with an open and flexible framework.

In the next chapter, you will see more details relating to XML and Web services. First, the chapter reviews what XML is and how it works. Next , the chapter broadens these concepts and shows how to create Web services that expose enterprise application functionality.