Challenges in converting a web product to desktop version..

Question

I have a web based product and am looking to convert that into a product that can be hosted within a firewall (or) hosted locally by the clients.

Some of the challenges i foresee are:

1. prevention of piracy
2. support
3. maintaining patches and versions (releases)
4. source control (incase of customization)

Please share some of your experiences on this..

Answer 1

Have you considered the possibility of delivering a thin client? You could deploy a large amount of the application to them, but maintain core logic and functionality on a hosted server that you control and provide access via web services?