Slashdot Mirror
Open Source Point-of-Sale - What's Out There?
aztektum asks: "I have taken on the task of designing a building a networked Point-of-Sale system for a friends new restaurant/club. We have looked at out of the box solutions, but their upfront costs are a bit staggering, so I suggested a DIY approach. We are going to buy hardware outright, probably using Elo touch-screens and basic white boxes. It's the software that we're coming up short on. We are looking for a system that has good back-end management (running reports for end of day, from a central location and other such features), has a flexible/customizable UI, and as a bonus doesn't suffer from too much proprietary lock-in. Since Elo's screens have Linux support, I wanted to see if anyone on Slashdot has worked on similar projects and has experience with open source POS solutions. I have Google'd a bit and found some options, but I cannot spend a lot time testing out multiple setups because of a firm deadline. Quite bluntly, what's the best but least expensive option that you know of?" This is not the first time this particular issue has appeared on Ask Slashdot. The last discussion on this particular issue was way back in 2003. What has changed since then?
My family owns a large chain of retail stores in the Northeast, about 75 stores. We just started a pilot using Suse Linux Enterprise Desktop's Point of Sale implementation and so far I can say we are loving it. We had a Novell partner come in and do the implementation (still with all beta software, mind you) and are piloting the product in three stores...one small, two large. The implementation was simple and the integration with our current system went without a hitch. Hopefully by the end of the year with the final product out we'll have the entire set of stores moved over. This was not what I expected out of the Novell I studied in college (15 years ago) and I am pleasantly surprised.
Good luck.