wcf services or RIA services

Question

Hi,

We are in the middle of the development cycle of our new product. When we designed it about a year ago, we chose WCF Services->Silverlight combination. Some of those WCF services are also consumed by WPF, Win Forms and third party Java clients. I have been reading about RIA Services lately.

My questions are

1. What are the advantages that we get uisng RIA services over plain WCF services? A RIA service can be consumed by a Java Client?

2. Does it make sense some part of the product with plain WCF services and some parts in RIA services? Are there any issues with configuration of these two parts?

3. What can RIA buy us over plain WCF services?

Thank you for inputs, Suresh

Answer 1

Here is an interesting article regarding WCF Services vs RIA Services.