What is a Smart Client?

A Smart Client is an application that uses local processing, consumes XML Web Services and can be deployed and updated from a centralized server. While the .NET Framework (Windows Forms) and the .NET Compact Framework provide the ability to develop Smart Clients with ease, other technologies can provide smart client applications by utilizing the same architecture. Smart Client is the concept of architecting your application solution into a smart, flexible and convenient platform that utilizes web services for communication.
Why do we need a Smart Client?

To understand the need lets see the pros and cons of both the existing architectures the Thin Client (Web) and the Thick Client (Desktop)
The Thin Client

The Thin clients or the Web application provided features like

1. Easy to Update Single location update
2. Easy to deploy Single location Update
3. Easy to manage.

If it had the above features then it also had the following issues

1. Network dependency are usually Network based
2. Poor user experience mainly emit HTML
3. Complex to develop.

The Thick Client

The Thick clients or the Rich client or Desktop Applications or Client/Server application provided features like

1. Rich User experience by means of better user interface
2. Offline capabilities Need not be connected on a Network
3. High Developer Productivity
4. Responsive & Flexible

The Thick did provide the above feature but on the other hand they also had the following issues

1. Tough to Update Each location needs modifications
2. Tough to Deploy Deployment had to be done at multiple location
3. DLL Hell