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Major Retailer Chooses Linux for its Tills

Posted by ScuttleMonkey on from the another-one-bites-the-dust dept.

An anonymous reader writes "ZDNet is running an article on how Matalan has installed several thousand point of sale terminals running Linux rather than Windows. The reason? Reduced cost of ownership. It was a big consultancy that did the work, Capgemini, and IBM on the kit side. Sounds like some people can get Linux to work in an 'enterprise environment' after all."

18 of 316 comments (clear)

  1. Work.. by Tesko · · Score: 5, Informative

    I work as a cashier at a grocery store, and they run MS XP Embedded. We have at least 1 till crash at least once a day. Causing major headaches, I wish we had them running on Linux...

    1. Re:Work.. by rm69990 · · Score: 5, Informative

      Same with Canada Safeway, where I used to work. They moved their cash systems from Unix to Windows Server 2003 and WinXP Embedded, and now the actual terminals have to rebooted periodicly throughout the day as they lock up. It is actually something new cashiers are trained to do.

    2. Re:Work.. by tehshen · · Score: 5, Funny

      LOL! I do my groceries at a wholesaler next to my place, and their registers run on Windoze. They have the default "clang" beep, and each time they beep, I jump...

      I used to work in a wine store which ran KDE. In certain cases, having a smashing bottle sound on an error message isn't a good thing...

      --
      Guy asked me for a quarter for a cup of coffee. So I bit him.
  2. Linux in the enterprise? by HangingChad · · Score: 5, Funny
    What's next? Cats barking at dogs? It's outta control! Obviously these people have never read those MSFT funded TCO studies or they would never have let that commie OS through the door.

    Hehe. MSFT is going to be pretty unhappy with Capgemini.

    --
    That's our life, the big wheel of shit. - The Fat Man, Blue Tango Salvage
    1. Re:Linux in the enterprise? by FuryG3 · · Score: 5, Interesting

      Obviously these people have never read those MSFT funded TCO studies or they would never have let that commie OS through the door.

      I'll bet they have, they actually wrote one of those studies

      From TFA:

      Menzel defended this study, saying that Capgemini provides an independent view, but admitted "sometimes there are situations where you get together with the client and defend their data."

      Yeah, sure. Those "situations" would be when "the client" gives you a lot of "their money".

      Very objective consultancy.

  3. the tide, led by POS points by fak3r · · Score: 5, Interesting

    I really think POS is an important step for Linux acceptance. The beauty of Linux, of corse, is that it can run on an AS/400 or a wristwatch; and everything inbetween. I cringe when I see POS machines just running a terminal within Windows; think of what they are paying just to have telnet to a main system! While I, and most good geeks, run nothing but Linux for desktops, it'll take time to get them past the exec level; but for POS it's all about the bottom line, and no one will be able to beat Linux in that field. I think that will be the tipping point, but feel it's still ~3 years off.

    --
    fak3r.com
    1. Re:the tide, led by POS points by tmasssey · · Score: 5, Insightful
      Those of you who have used the old-school NCR ATMs with the green-screen text interface know of what I speak. The new Windows ATMs are 3 times slower and 100 times less reliable. One wonders why the rush to abandon the old software that worked perfectly well.

      Simple: Advertising. And, I guess, user perception. But mainly advertising.

      I agree with the function/performance argument. The new ATM's do seem slower, especially in transitioning from screen to screen. But people like them better: they're more friendly! And the color screen makes the bank look better. Forget selling you on a loan or something: just the fact that when people walk down the street and see a bank's ATM's, they're bright and cheerful.

      People select products based on such factors. And banking is a competitive business, like most any other.

      --
      Linux IT Consulting and Domino Development in Michigan
    2. Re:the tide, led by POS points by alienw · · Score: 5, Insightful

      Why would you run any general-purpose operating system on a point-of-sale terminal?

      It's much cheaper to use an existing OS than developing a custom OS. There isn't even any reason to develop a custom OS, considering both Windows and Linux work quite well for such applications. Not to mention, you can use cheap off-the-shelf hardware and drivers instead of having to develop your own.

      For that matter, why would you use an x86 CPU in a cash register?

      Maybe because it's cheap and easy to develop for?

      The new Windows ATMs are 3 times slower and 100 times less reliable.

      They also don't look fugly, are easier to use, and probably cost less to maintain.

      One wonders why the rush to abandon the old software that worked perfectly well.

      Legacy custom-developed software is typically a money pit. What if all that crap is coded in Assembler for some obsolete CPU? What if you need support for modern networking protocols?

  4. Remote Access? Nice. by Brent+Spiner · · Score: 5, Funny
    For example, when one of the Linux tills had a problem with the keyboard an IBM team in the US were able to connect onto the till remotely
    ssh root@till
    Password:
     
    root@till:~> eject /dev/till0
    Profit!!!
    --
    Reality test... am I dreaming?
  5. But, but.... by RealisticCanadian · · Score: 5, Funny

    Microsoft swears by it's "independent" studies that windows is better, faster, cheaper!

    And besides, what about licencing? You absolutely have to have that!

    OMFG! And I almost forgot, you actually OWN your installed copy of linux, as opposed to MSWXP! Why, why would you actually want to OWN the software you pay money for? Are you crazy?

    Up is down! Down is up! The world doesn't make any sense anymore!

    --
    A couple fans told me that my last journal entry was mint; give it a shot. Hope you like.
  6. Maplin allready use Linux for POS by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Informative

    I work for an electronics company in the UK called Maplin.

    They allready use Fedora for all their equipment.

    Thunderbird for e-mail and firefox for web browser.

  7. I work at Pizza Hut by Headcase88 · · Score: 5, Informative

    We run DOS.

    --
    "When the atomic bomb goes off there's devastation...but when the atomic bong goes off there's celebraaaaation!"
  8. thrills? by StarvingSE · · Score: 5, Funny

    Did anyone else read this as " Major Retailer Chooses Linux for its Thrills" at first?

    Linux turns me on too... ;)

    --
    I got nothin'
  9. But Windows... by Sr.+Pato · · Score: 5, Funny

    has the lower cost of 0wnership!

    --
    Nobody's gay for Mole-Man. :-(
  10. Re:easy decision by tmasssey · · Score: 5, Informative
    OS/2 used to be very well used in IBM POS machines. OS/2 was used for more than just ATM's. It could be stripped very small and put into all kinds of places!

    It was also a popular OS for vertial applications such as bank terminals. NationsBank grew from a tiny bank to the 6th largest bank (before they were bought by Bank of America) on a plan of aggressive acquisition. A large part of this strategy was their computer infrastructure. It was heavily based on OS/2: Each branch had a single centrally-administered OS/2 Workspace on Demand server. All computers in a branch would actually boot from the server (LTSP-style), with all of its applications ready to go. If the bank wanted to update their software, they could push these changes from a central point to each branch overnight (or over time), and schedule the switchover. The next day, everyone came in and was completely updated.

    You can do the same with Linux (I already mentioned LTSP, but this was almost 10 years ago.

    Like they say, what's old is new again.

    --
    Linux IT Consulting and Domino Development in Michigan
  11. Wrong! by Reality+Master+201 · · Score: 5, Interesting

    When were you last involved with a POS implementation at a retailer? Cause I did one a couple years ago, for a retailer, and the in-store systems that the client was putting in place were fairly complicated. The actual POS terminal itself is a fairly minor part of the whole in-store system. The work for things like inventory tracking and restocking (from suppliers), EOD and realtime sales numbers, even time card and other HR type functionality, is usually done on back office servers. Sadly, the article was thin on details about the particular system that was implemented, so the argument is largely speculative at the moment, but to say that POS systems aren't "enterprise" is just not true, particularly if the business sells product for a living.

  12. Re:Point of Sale Systems are not really enterprise by Liam+Slider · · Score: 5, Insightful

    So a system...used by enterprises....is not an enterprise system...

  13. Re:Aren't POS systems usually dumb terminals? by vastabo · · Score: 5, Informative

    4690 is Digital Research FlexOS with IBM's name on it; IBM didn't even bother to grep the help files for DR references or change "dredix" to "ibmedit" or something. I'm really not sure why they went with FlexOS either, but I'm sure they had their reasons.

    The registers CAN run Windows or OS/2 but 500MHz Celerons (or lower) tend to die. So, like you said, it tFTP boots a basic OS which includes a funny little Java Virtual Machine and some TCP/IP utilities (I think you can telnet into them, but I haven't tried). The JVM will load whatever frontend the vendor soaked you for (usually some kind of Java/XML type deal that pulls stuff from the database back on the store controller). We use a really god-aweful Swing app for display. The registers usually have uptimes in the 3 month range unless something bad happens on the store controller (like IBM Deskstar hard drives).