hope I am in the right place to ask this. A client, for whom I developed a group management software (in Flex) is now asking me to develop a fully-fledged hotel management software (tailored to his specific needs, that's why he does not use an existing one).
However, he wants to access it on the Web and have a Desktop only version (if the internet won't work for any reason). Further more it should work on Mac and Windows.
The software should be able to do some accounting, room management, template editing, creating pdfs, exporting excels, composing HTML Emails, lots of Reports etc. etc.
This poses a real problem for me, as I know that most of those apps are written with .NET or similar, to have easy access to all Office components, Outlook, etc. However, we need Mac support as well.
I was thinking of using Flex/Air, which would give me cross platform, web and desktop, but I am afraid that Air does not come with all the possibilities of Excel Export, Templated Editing, Outlook Integration, etc. And also the development time might be much higher than in .NET i am afraid.
Any suggestions how you would tackle this problem?
Thanks,
Martin
Best Answer
Resume requirements:
Additional points to consider: Note that you can have a "intranet" web version in case web goes offline, and that some companies prefer (.NET / Java) Desktop apps, instead of web apps, by speed, not because losing net connection.
Its common to suggest the "tool that you know, or have more experienced" as the programming framework. But, your requirements seems no to be fulfill by "Flex/Air", specially when it comes to MS related software.
Suggestion:
You may want to check .NET / Mono, to check if apply to all your requirements.
Additionally, you may want to use a different framework for web, and another for desktop, but using a shared design, entities, model, database.