Judging by reports from Convergence, it looks like Microsoft will be basing its enterprise products on HTML5 frontends. So, time to break out the Build conference videos and learn WinRT right?
Well… Yeah. But don’t expect it to help much when it comes to SharePoint! We know that SharePoint vNext will have a Metro look and feel, but that doesn’t necessarily mean that SharePoint will be joining Dynamics as a Windows-only ‘Metro Wall’ application. SharePoint has far too many legacy restrictions to become a pure Metro Wall + WinRT app. Reality check time:
- Development of SharePoint 15 is a huge effort, probably started well before WinRT was spec’d.
- Office 365 is sold as a cross-browser, cross-environment solution. It can’t rely on Windows 8 features. It has to work on Macs, Windows XP, etc.
- Office vNext doesn’t live inside the Metro Wall: it will be a desktop app.
So… hold up, and in the mean time, check out this neat client-side app stack diagram from the “Single Page Applications” guidance @ www.asp.net).
A client-side application stack diagram from Microsoft.