I am building a .net application(xp, vista, 7) that will communicate with an embedded device. I will be able to connect via IP, serial port and modem. Question: Should I allow some type of open connection within my application that will allow me to connect to the device through some other channels that may be set up in the operating system just to allow future extensibility without really having to change anything on the device? I was just imagining that the operating system would be able to serve all communication channels that may be setup through the operating system to the device. Like would an admin setup some channel through SMTP or other protocol. I just didn’t want to box myself in and ignore some more open architecture.

Thanks.