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I am developing Point of Sales (POS) for Windows. I am torn into two choices, to develop it as desktop app or modern app.

From my understanding, WIndows Store does not publish desktop app directly. I want to sell my app in Windows Store, so that leaves me with modern app.

However, I also understand that Modern app is not meant for complicated application. The POS shall contains inventory, user and shift management, supplier info and some business intelligence and might get complicated in the future. Can Modern app cater this?

Also, what is the limitation of the Modern app? I know that I would need to follow some design convention by Microsoft, but other than that will it be sluggish when the data is large?

For your information, I am using SQLite as the standalone database.

Haikal Nashuha
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  • My modern app in the top paid in Security with $20 monthly sales ;) Don't know where you'll find the clients for modern ui app. Also, you can publish classic apps in the windows store, but your company should be well known and established. – crea7or Jan 10 '14 at 00:59
  • @crea7or does that mean a good thing or bad thing? Lol. – Haikal Nashuha Jan 10 '14 at 05:08
  • I don't think that $20 monthly income is a good thing for a top category app ;) – crea7or Jan 10 '14 at 05:29
  • @crea7or I always thought that Windows Store can make money... – Haikal Nashuha Jan 10 '14 at 07:36
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    So, it looks like, but not. Windows Phone generate more income. – crea7or Jan 10 '14 at 08:14
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    Windows store apps are applicable to windows 8.* on-wards but there are people who are still hanging round with XP(although they will eventually upgrade), still windows 7 Users are much more than windows 8, plus desktop app plays well on windows 8. So in my **opinion** desktop app... – Pranav Singh Jan 14 '14 at 11:02
  • One thing to note is how you want the PoS to work with input. Do you want it to be touch-based? Do you want it to be easily installed on a low-end tablet (to reduce cost of the full PoS procurement)? If either of these is the case, I suggest a Modern app. They'll push touch-first and can be deployed to Surfaces (and other tablets) which make them pretty extensible and able to work on cheap, low-power machines. – Nate Diamond Jan 15 '14 at 18:48
  • Also, one thing you definitely *should* do is put as much of your business logic into a Portable Class Library. This way, if you decide to branch out to phone or RT, then you won't have to reimplement the wheel to do so. Design at the outset to be portable in either case. – Nate Diamond Jan 15 '14 at 18:49
  • @NateDiamond It should support touchscreen but not to an extent of tablet since the POS need to be connected to receipt printer, digital display etc. Now that is new to me..Portable Class Library? – Haikal Nashuha Jan 16 '14 at 06:01
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    The Surface should be able to do all of those, so long as they use WinUSB for serial connections. It will require a USB hub, but that's totally doable. A Portable Class Library is basically a Class Library that uses a subset of the .NET framework designed kind of like a Venn diagram of the platforms that you select. So if you select Windows Store and Windows Phone, then it will only include the libraries that both of them have access to. This means that it's usable from apps on both platforms without having to change anything. You implement platform-specific things through Inversion of Control – Nate Diamond Jan 16 '14 at 18:13
  • @NateDiamond Could you please add more explanation on Modern vs Desktop as answer so that I could give mark it. Also please include any possible experience you have in the WIndows Store in terms of these two choices. – Haikal Nashuha Jan 19 '14 at 14:05

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I think You should consider first your revenue model. Maybe there you'll find some insights that will help you decide.

However, I think goin the mid path can led you to a better environment.

I will consider you are not only developing an app and uploading it to a website and expect people to fall from the moon into your website, and pay you and download it. I will assueme you have a sales team, a quality of service and so on.

Considering all windows os support winforms applications, developing a winforms client is a must and safe bet (again, the revenue of the bet depends on your sales force). But you also need to design an application architecture. I suggest you to develop a backend (that will deal with inventrys, historic archives, business rules, etc) you can install on your customers infrastructure, or (guess what?) offer it as a service.

Over that backend, according to what your customers infrastructure is, you can offer web clients, desktop clients or Windows store clients. Each with their own cons and pros you can use to your own benefit without disregarding your customer goals.

Besides that, Try to offer something good, easy and fun. POS systems always are so bored that there you may have an opportunity to differentiate.

You are also worried about the performance of the apps. Well, most of it depend on the backend and its infrastructure. I think your still thinking on a fully local application, but you can design a better architecture, open you business opportunities and deliver a great experience by knowing better practices and more modern architectures.

The biggest difference you need to consider is that Modern Apps run on more restricted environment than desktop ones. Accessing hardware components and system resources is more limited and, depending on what your app does, that can be an issue or at least a headache. With desktop, you still have all access as we are used to from windows 95, but there is also more security issues. Windows store apps also are more difficult to be pirated.

Hope this helps and gives you a better understanding on what to do next.

Ricker Silva
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