Why UWP failed in Business

In the real world of Business and Enterprise, where Microsoft(still) holds sway, Bosses expect fast( Matter of days/weeks for banks), robust software development and deployment to remain competitive.

UWP (C#/XAML) has failed in this arena.  Compared to 15 year old Windows Forms, UWP is not the right, or effective, tool for this arena. (This arena is NOT interested in mobile/ scaled Apps, it just wants business software deployed to its desktops)

Some Developer perspectives on why UWP [C#/XAML based] Failed:

a) The UWP Platform is narrow, does not offer the deep API to exploit the Windows client side platform

b) UWP is feature incomplete, and relies upon Third party to develop basic Business capability (Aka No basic Charts available in the core ToolBox)  its a NuGet Hell to recover base capability with all the associated Third Party Support and Reliability Risks

c) The XAML developer experience is still a bag of pooh, with Visual Studio XAML designer banging out on obscure poorly defined errors, and over complex styling code (There is a good reason why CSS is separate to HTML)

When LOB Business developers can be more than twice as productive/effective coding in Windows Forms than UWP, then business will never take up UWP seriously.

Basically Microsoft has let the Line of Business community down, in depreciating classic .NET for the inferior UWP technology.  Of course for mobile and commercial Apps UWP makes sense.      

We can all see where Microsoft is going on the Client side, they suggest we should be writing our Client side code in JavaScript/ HTML (in UWP compatible) !  FFS Javascript for LOB Business Applications. What planet are they on ? JS code is unreliable, reliant upon third parties, low productivity, low reliability, difficult to maintain etc etc.

Conversation 9 comments

  • 5664

    Premium Member
    05 February, 2017 - 12:06 pm

    <p>I really hope that work is being done behind the scenes to improve the Universal API. I’d love to see it build out and completed so that more capable pieces of software can be built.</p>

    • 6319

      05 February, 2017 - 10:22 pm

      <blockquote><em><a href="#41190">In reply to </a><a href="../../../../users/jimchamplin">jimchamplin</a><a href="#41190">:</a></em></blockquote>
      <p>I’d consider it a sure thing that they are working on expanding the capabilities of UWP. They need to rationalize the new APIs across the&nbsp;ecosystem for the platform scenarios. Otherwise it’ll become WinRT, which was a pile of excrement because of its API inconsistency across platforms.</p>

  • 10533

    05 February, 2017 - 3:47 pm

    <p>You speak in past tense. My company will be rewriting a Win Forms app in the future. We intended to evaluate UWP at that time.</p>
    <p>I believe that Microsoft intends this to the be future of Windows development for the next few decades. I am giving them time.</p>

    • 9201

      06 February, 2017 - 8:06 am

      <blockquote><em><a href="#41235">In reply to </a><a href="../../../../users/jsavage">jsavage</a><a href="#41235">:</a></em></blockquote>
      <p>Good luck with that. &nbsp;</p>
      <p>I speak in the present tense, on how unproductive UWP &nbsp;development is&nbsp;for LOB business development. Compared to fifteen year old Windows Forms, with its rich API and built in GUI controls UWP &nbsp;a much less productive environment to get LOB code out to standard business desktops.</p>

  • 5496

    05 February, 2017 - 6:45 pm

    <p>UWP is good to bring your app to the window store. This way you write once and run anywhere.</p>
    <p>Businesses aren’t going to recode their programs if it’s only used by their business, and how no plans to bring it to mobile.</p>

    • 9201

      06 February, 2017 - 8:12 am

      <blockquote><em><a href="#41244">In reply to </a><a href="../../../../users/lordbaal1">lordbaal1</a><a href="#41244">:</a></em></blockquote>
      <p>"This way you write once and run anywhere" &nbsp;Umm no, UWP only runs on Windows.</p>
      <p>I think you are confused with Xamarin Forms which has that multi platform aspiration. But Xamarin is even less featured than UWP (for the sake of commonality) &nbsp;and relies upon its own version of XAML layout&nbsp;language&nbsp;</p>

      • 5496

        06 February, 2017 - 9:06 pm

        <blockquote><em><a href="#41281">In reply to </a><a href="../../../../users/Jules_Wombat">Jules Wombat</a><a href="#41281">:</a></em></blockquote>
        <p>what I mean is id they also want a Windows phone app.</p>

        • 1377

          Premium Member
          07 February, 2017 - 11:11 am

          <p><em><a href="#41396">In reply to </a><a href="../../../../users/lordbaal1">lordbaal1</a><a href="#41396">:</a></em></p>
          <p>There aren’t that many apps which would work similarly on phones and PCs. The UWP Calculator app is one because it’s OK full screen on phone and running in a phone-sized window on a PC. There may be several other phone-size apps which could be useful on PCs running in small windows.</p>
          <p>The other direction is far less obvious: PC apps which ideally span most or all of a 14" or larger monitor running on a phone.</p>

        • 8578

          07 February, 2017 - 11:20 am

          <blockquote><em><a href="#41396">In reply to </a><a href="../../../../users/lordbaal1">lordbaal1</a><a href="#41396">:</a></em></blockquote>
          <p>Well, if they want it to run on WP10 which has the smallest installed base of WPs. I suspect it would be hard to find any companies that provide WP10s to their employees as their standard choice. Of course, as many others have said, a LOB application is unlikely to be useful on a tiny phone screen.</p>

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