Case Study: Tomax achieves scalable, mobile-ready POS and responsive in‑store UX with Akka

Tomax Deploys Reactive Programming to Overhaul POS and In-Store Computing User Experience at Leading Retailers

Tomax Corporation provides Retail.net, a cloud-based SaaS suite for merchandising, POS, operations and workforce management used by over 50 retail chains and 15,000 stores. As mobile devices and multi‑channel retail adoption surged, Tomax’s decade‑old Java/J2EE stack and purpose-built POS hardware struggled with device-agnostic UIs, extreme seasonal scaling, PCI‑compliant cloud deployments and the concurrency demands of modern mobile environments.

Tomax refactored its platform onto the Typesafe Reactive Platform—using Scala, Akka and Play—reusing Java code where possible to enable nonblocking, clustered services and responsive mobile interfaces. In about six months they delivered a more modular, extensible multi‑channel solution, began experimenting with public cloud deployments, improved development velocity and resilience, and enabled device‑agnostic store workflows that increase associate productivity and sales.

Tomax

Scott Lewis

Lead Architect