ASP.Net/browser vs Terminal Services RAIL/Window's-based development

[Ryan]

Terminal Services 2007 offers a new feature I believe will be called
RAIL: Remote Applications Integrated Locally.


This feature allows for remote applications to look as if they were
installed locally. In the example I saw the guy went to his start menu

and opened a remote version of Excel which acted as if it was local.
(No VPN needed)


Now for my question.


In the future will large/complex software systems that need the
complexity, development ease, and responsiveness of windows development

use this feature over HTML/browser-based/ASP.Net?


My view is yes.


-imagine companies with 100's of client applications which will now be
able to be managed by the server
-imagine not having to deal with HTML/Javascript/CSS in development
(and I know everything about it)


What do you think?

 

[bruce barker]

rail probably will not replace the browser. Windows finally gets the
remote terminal features Unix and other O/S have had for decades. see
X/11 windows. even though x11 runs over the internet and predates html,
html became popular on unix.


-- bruce (sqlwork.com)

 

[Ryan]

If your response was, RAIL would not replace the browser, I didnt ask
that.

I want to know if you think RAIL will allow sophisticated (large)
windows based systems to be distributed as web-based with their
existing functionality rather than rewritten in HTML (with tons of lost
functionality)... I guess my concultion is yes... since.. why not?

 

[Anthony Jones]

If your response was, RAIL would not replace the browser, I didnt ask
that.

I want to know if you think RAIL will allow sophisticated (large)
windows based systems to be distributed as web-based with their
existing functionality rather than rewritten in HTML (with tons of lost
functionality)... I guess my concultion is yes... since.. why not?

The technology to distribute apps over the web with UIs not hampered by HTML
has existed for a long time. .NET is capable of delivering that already
(I'm talking .NET client-side assemblies delivered via HTTP). I don't think
RAIL is really going to unlock many more doors. Which is a shame but it's
more of a shame that we have treated users so poorly by serving up HTML
based UIs for so long. Worse yet ASP.NET just makes it even easier for us
to serve up mush for user interfaces whilst we kid ourselves that now we can
used fully-felged languages for developing powerful apps.

 

[Ryan]

Here is what I see.

XAML has been developed as a markup language for windows similar to how
HTML was developed for the web.

XAML will be used in RAIL to send information to the client, and at
that point the client will render the XAML.

The IE browser will be able to handle XAML.

It sounds to me like another area of the web for windows applications.
I believe the security and load balancing would be given through HTTPS
since TCP has load-balancing.

Anyone knowledgeable about this topic?