SPC12: SharePoint and Office Cloud App Dev Model

Author: Suzanne George
It is the end of day 1 at the SharePoint conference and one could write a book about all the new / coming changes with SharePoint 2013.  I have taken pages of notes, met with many people, and learned about many of the new features Microsoft is bringing us with SharePoint 2013.
One of the biggest changes in SharePoint 2013 (to me anyway) is the Cloud app development model.  We are now no longer SharePoint developers but developers for the entire Office suite of tools as code can be used in a SharePoint private app catalogue, Office apps such as word / excel, and shared or discovered using the Microsoft App Store.  These new App Hosting Models can be categorized by the following screenshot from the developer session today:

SharePoint and Office Apps are developed using your favorite language whether it be.Net, HTML, Javascript, etc.  To add even more flexibility you can use your favorite development platform such as Visual Studio 2012, “Napa”, or Dreamweaver – your choice.   Microsoft has provided added-value to Visual Studio 2012 with project templates, additional productivity features, as well as additional CSS controls and templates.  It is also possible to create an app which uses HTML5 and Javascript for the client-side components while using .Net with Windows Azure on the server.   For additional flexibility you can connect your app with any public or private web service using the REST and client APIs.   The great thing about using REST is that it is easy to use and can be used with JavaScript and JQuery, is platform agnostic, results are provided in either Json or Atom format, and testing can be done in your native browser.
The Templates available for apps can be summarized by the following:
Generic App

• Rich-Web content
• Data Visualization Analysis & Mashup
• Reference Tools
• Content Authoring & Publishing
• Contextual Content & Services
• Workflow and Collaboration

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Document Templates

• Content Authoring & Publishing
• Forms & Reports
• Dashboards

Apps for SharePoint

• Business Processes
• Team Collaboration
• Workflow

For more information, please see the MSDN articles found at: http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/jj220040.aspx.