Execs applaud software standard for POS systems

Discount Store News, Feb 9, 1998 by Richard Halverson

NATIONWIDE DSN REPORT -- Sears, JCPenney and Kmart each have more than 50,000 POS terminals that are due for replacement over the next several years.

And each lined up recently at a press conference to endorse a new POS software standard based on the Java computer language that is designed to work on any POS register and even a hand-held terminal.

The draft standard was the first developed by the Information Technology Council of the National Retail Federation. More than 20 retailers, including The Home Depot, and technology vendors, including Sun Microsystems (which developed the Java language), helped develop the standard.

Noticeably absent from the conference was Microsoft, which has been feuding in the courts with Sun about Java. Microsoft has produced a competing POS system, dubbed OPOS, and the Java-based standard matches its features.

NCR and IBM also appeared at the conference to endorse the JavaPOS and stated that they are working with Sun on new hardware that will operate on it.

Sun claims that its Java-based POS standard enables retail applications to run on platforms that are considerably less expensive than traditional platforms operated with Microsoft's Windows 95/98 operating systems.

The advantage of JavaPOS is that it can be used with any system, whether a Mac, a Windows or a Sun Unix system, and retailers can use it on the latest type of hardware while continuing to use it on older machines. A Java virtual machine, either embedded in the software or installed on hardware, interprets the JavaPOS code so each type of machine can use it.

"This is an important milestone for the retail industry," said Don Gilbert, NRF senior vp for IT. "This is one of the few times that retailers have worked collectively and with support of key technology vendors to develop a product that will benefit the industry as a whole. More importantly, NRF has established a framework for future standards efforts that will allow retailers to leverage new technologies in a cost-effective manner."

Sears is faced with the task of modernizing 3,500 registers per year, said Joseph Smialowski, senior vp and cio. The new standard will reduce costs and speed the time to market, he said.

"Standards like those for JavaPOS will play an important role to help enhance the services we provide to our customers in the store," Smialowski said. "The completion of this standard is a watershed event that will benefit retailers for years to come."

David Evans, senior vp, information systems for JCPenney, said his chain will have to replace 55,000 registers over the next two to four years.

JCPenney programmers are coding in JavaPOS now for a future POS system, Evans said. The new standard will lower JCPenney's cost, he added.

Kmart doesn't intend to replace its 50,000 registers, but it needs to update software written to the JavaPOS standard, said Mike Jones, vp for MIS.

Mike Andersen, vp for Home Depot, also praised the time the Java standard will save in getting new applications to market. Home Depot also uses Java for a job application system and payroll management, Andersen said.