We're building POS applications for major retailers, and for this kind of software, native is king and will stay for the foreseeable future (with a few exceptio

We're building POS applications for major retailers, and for this kind of software, native is king and will stay for the foreseeable future (with a few exceptions confirming the rule, of course). These applications need tight integration with exotic hardware, must satisfy weird fiscal requirements often written with native applications in mind, must run rock-solid 24/7 with daily usage and predictable response times for weeks without a restart, must be able to provide core functionality without interruption in offline situations while syncing up transparently with everyone else when back online and usually run in an appliance-like way on dedicated hardware (start with the system, always in foreground, only major application on the system, user should not be able to close or restart it, updates and restarts triggered by remote support/management). All of this is much easier to do with native applications, running them in a browser just adds the need for crazy kludges and workarounds to simulate or enforce something you get for free if running native. Also you end up with managing hardware boxes with periphery attached and software running on them anyway, so whether managing a native application that is a browser which then runs the POS application or whether directly managing the POS application does not save you any work; if anything it even gives you an additional thing to manage, which increases maintenance effort and potential for failure (which quickly is catastrophic in this business, POS down today effectively means the store can close its doors). Back-office applications in the same space are actually pretty well-suited for a web application, and frequently implemented as such today.