Retail

With consumer habits steering towards more service based economies, one of the largest service based market sectors is the retail industry. For example, we are now seeing a vast investment being made into education specifically within the retail marketplace.

The larger companies are growing both their geographic spread and their product portfolio. Also online retailing is becoming ever more prevalent and retailers are increasing their service by offering a ‘local touch’ delivering from the nearest branch, often on same day delivery.

The pressure in the marketplace is to become more flexible and to offer a better, more informative experience to both suppliers and customers. This then enables the retailers to take more of the available Total Available retail spend as well as taking a greater portion of the suppliers marketing budget to further increase market awareness….

The backbone of any retail organisation is logistics. The ability to price specific items in a single store to take advantage of local trends or solve specific stock issues can make a huge difference in profitability and ultimately the way the retailer is perceived by investors, customers and suppliers.

At the same time there has been an increasing trend away from vendor specific infrastructure towards standard building blocks such as PC technology for Point of Sales. PC technology on POS makes for easier integration into an enterprise system, with reduced costs of hardware. This has lead to Microsoft Operating Systems becoming more and more prevalent in the retail marketplace.

The ability to write multi-lingual applications that interface with enterprise systems using a common set of application development tools from POS to Server to shelf edge advertising (see digital signage) and link pricing data to real-time stock and special offer deals in specific stores is very compelling.

The move to standard hardware offerings in the larger retailers has also lead to the creation of the OPOS standard (OLE for POS). This enables POS devices to be created easily using a Microsoft platform with most devices now becoming Plug and Play. (visit http://monroecs.com/oposbackground.htm)

Microsoft has worked with some big names in the Retail space and has created WEPOS specifically for the retail marketplace. The name Windows Embedded for Point of Service reflects this industry shift from a sales to a services model.

Windows Embedded for Point of Service and Retail

Windows Embedded for Point of Service is Microsoft's first operating system specifically developed for the Retail vertical markets. This operating system and application environment delivers the functionality that retailers demand for point of service (POS) systems. Additionally, the product's design enables partner companies to cost-effectively build and market their POS systems based on the Windows Embedded for Point of Service platform. Additionally, when you use Windows Embedded for Point of Service you will receive 10 years of product support from Microsoft—the longest published support life cycle in the point-of-service systems industry.

Designed to help save point-of-service developer’s time and money, WEPOS is also the first point-of-service operating system platform to provide plug-n-play support for around 24 retail device peripherals, including:

• Cash drawers
• Receipt printers
• Scanners
• Chip and Pin
• Biometrics
  

Windows Embedded for Point of Service-based devices are easy for retailers to install and integrate with current and legacy retail device peripherals into one point-of-service system. Once you complete your device, you pay no licensing costs until your device ships. Abacus Embedded can provide you with a free OEM Pre-Installation Kit (OPK) and the technical support to enable you to install WePOS very quickly to your retail devices. Based on XP Embedded but hardened in a retail specific way to include retail plug and play drivers and does not require OS activation.
  
Working with Windows Embedded for Point of Service speeds development because the platform features retail-specific technology and support capabilities which lead to lower costs in:

• Application development
• OS Deployment
• Servicing and maintenance
• Standard PC Hardware

Windows Embedded for Point of Service is designed for a full line of point-of-service systems, including:

• Self-checkout counters
• Information stations
• Food ordering kiosks
• ATMs
  

Windows XP Professional and standard PC hardware is very prevalent in the Retail marketplace. XP Professional for Embedded Systems offers OEM’s :

• Longevity of support, as your business expands you can continue to ship on the same software platform out to 2016 - minimum
• Ease of application development using the well known and well supported Visual Studio
• Easy integration into an enterprise system
• Multi-lingual support
• System based licensing not HDD based licensing, replacement of the HDD does not mean a new license is required
  

Windows XP Embedded offers the same benefits as Windows XP Professional as well as:

• The ability to lock down the system to prevent ‘tampering’
• A smaller footprint
• Increases system reliability
• The ability to run from Solid state storage increases reliability as moving parts such as HDD’s are a major source of failure in the POS hardware

As you can see, Windows Embedded can support your Retail device, whatever sector it may be designed for. In addition to the operating system powering your device, we can offer specific Microsoft retail application software through Microsoft Dynamics Retail Management System and dedicated hardware solutions (Hardware Offering).