When ever I am approached to help design or improve an architecture for a system, one of the first issues I ask about is deployment requirements.

I generally like to choose the technologies that require writing the least amount of code to deliver a feature: LESS CODE == LESS BUGS == LESS MAINTENANCE TIME == MORE REVENUES.

Packaging and deployment applications is one of those tasks that requires considerable time and resource to build, test and deliver so when ever I find a technology that helps me with deployment, I give it serious consideration.

A great user experience is what makes users love your applications and recommend it to friends and colleagues which is why my choice of framework focuses on its ability to deliver a great user experience FIRST and being easy to maintain and deploy SECOND – until now!

Silverlight is an evolution of the Microsoft.NET framework targeting rich user experiences with the easiest deployment model – All your users need is a web browser, all popular browsers on all popular operating systems, Yes, that’s right, windows type rich applications that your users access using their favorite browser!

The development experience with Silverlight is very mature since it is an evolution of the Microsoft windows and web technologies, combined to provide Microsoft’s answer to RIA – Rich internet applications. Compared to the Adobe Flex/Flash platform.

I believe the mature back-end “story” offered by Silverlight is its primary advantage as far as Line of Business developers are concerned. Oh yeah, it’s also quickly gaining ground with designers allowing a great development story where the developers build the back-end and the designers focus on the user experience.

I am currently involved in several projects using Silverlight as the platform to build a next generation version of existing applications with:

• Improved User experience (UX).
• Mature n-tier architecture.
• Simple, cross platform deployment (without coding and testing installers)

Mature Architecture + Easy Deployment + Great UX = SILVERLIGHT

Stay tuned, I will share our experience with Silverlight as we progress.

Silverlight resources:

• http://www.silverlight.net – The official Silverlight website.
• http://videos.visitmix.com/MIX09/T40F – Building Line of business applications (Brad A.)

What ends up happening is that all this overhead (sorry infrustructure) requires most of the resources available, leaving you with very little time to work on making the product better for your users.

Come to think of it, the whole decision process about what software to buy is being controlled by IT departments with the users needs very low on the reasons for purchase.

It seems to me that there must be a better way to get the infrustructure and control IT wants without making it the majority of every development teams time in the Enterprise software space and I think I know what it is.

There is a new trend emerging among ISV’s (Independent Software Vendors) to try and find frameworks or platforms that provide all the infrustructure and build their value added solutions on top of them. I am currently looking at two platforms that seem to cover the common needs of most line-of-business applications like customers, accounts, cases and more to see how easy it is to develop within or on top of or even next to these platforms.

The two platforms I am currently looking at are: Microsoft Dynamics CRM and SalesForce’s new force.com.

Maybe this is the new version of “Don’t build what you can buy” so I decided to call this post “Don’t build what you can buy 2.0″.

I am interested in peoples experience with these platforms. Comments anyone?