Welcome 2010! And this years trends...

Welcome New Year and 2010! If you can read this post from your RSS reader, then you have successfully updated the URL or this blog. Congrats!

A new year is always full of possibilities, and this time I though I'd try to predict the future and the coming .NET development trends. This is always a somewhat futile attempt, but even so, it is great fun, so I'm going to give a try. Here goes a quick list, in no particular order:

• WPF user interfaces in business applications. So far, WinForms has been just too convenient way to develop user interfaces for business/database application. I think this year, we are going to see slow progress in new applications starting to be implemented with WPF.
• Team Foundation Server (TFS) becomes a commodity. So far, TFS has been a high-end solution, but as more and more developers start to migrate to Visual Studio 2010, this will change. At the end of the year, even smaller shops are starting to take notice.
• Green software development: marketing, PR and the bottom line will start to increasingly drive "greeness" in software development. And yes, the whole process needs to be considered. Home-office developers with good communication skills, efficient teleconferencing software and better development tools will lead the way.
• Rich Internet Applications (RIAs): I believe this year, Silverlight will start to become more mainstream. The technology is now mature enough.
• Cloud computing: Azure will be in the spotlights, but despite the buzz, I believe it will still take longer to see a broad adoption of this new technology set.

Of course, there's also a lot more to predict, but these trends will probably show their heads this year. We'll see how it goes. Also, remember to let me know what you think!