Wednesday, January 21, 2015

POS Software for Retail Outlets

A well-known giant in the IT and consulting space conducted the 2014 North America Consumer Payments Survey with a sample size of 4000, in order to understand and anticipate the forthcoming changes in the mode of payment preferred by consumers when they check out of retail stores. The results of the survey are startling enough to serve as a wake-up call for the honchos of organized retail, especially for those who are sure enough that data analytics is the only area they need to invest focus on. By 2020, it is expected that 18% of the shoppers who were part of the survey are likely to use Bitcoins and other digital currencies for paying their bills at point-of-sale or POS counters. More importantly, 40% of those who were surveyed gave an affirmative reply when asked if they had made at least one payment by using their smartphones in last seven days or so, which was a meager 16% back in 2012. All these statistics unmistakably indicate the gradually growing global trend of diminished usage of cash, credit cards and debit cards - instruments of financial exchange that dominate the POS transactions across the world. Demographic analysis of the data collected during survey suggests that individuals born in the late 1980s or later are leading the trend. A new breed of consumers has emerged with gross annual family income surpassing $150,000 and they are not reluctant to flush retail stores with digital currencies during payment. In fact, among the shoppers belonging to the high-income group, 19% have adopted digital currencies as the chosen mode for transacting at POS counters. As a result, it is expected that by the end of this decade, cash payments will be reduced by 12%, accompanied by a slump of 6% and 3% for debit cards and credit cards respectively - demonstrating a decline in the popularity of plastic money for the first time in 50 years. Most certainly, top executives of every big name in the organized retail sector are grappling with multiple issues. With the threat of losing competitive edge in alluring the young and tech-savvy consumer segment that is cash rich, also comes the cost-benefit ratio of investing on futuristic payment acceptance mechanisms. When the majority of consumers with modest spending power are still quite comfortable with conventional methods, decision makers are facing the dilemma of prioritizing one segment over the other. However, as with other cases of common people adapting to new technologies, there is also a flip side that needs to be considered. According to experts, the wide scale availability of POS hardware and software that will facilitate payment by using smartphones is a big question. The hardware, being manufactured by a handful of companies, will hit the market pretty soon in a coherent manner. On the other hand, innumerable big and small software firms that codes standard as well customized POS software for retail outlets will have to start from the scratch, simply because of the hardware compatibility issues. Since this is an emerging genre of technology that is yet to be embraced by the mass, there will be disparity regarding the packaging and pricing of software. Consequently, it will not be feasible for retailers to simultaneously install and maintain both the types - the one that favors mobile payment and the other, which is commonplace. Thus, for average retailers, the conventional transaction methods will still bear the same significance.

Open Source Software Is Taking Over the World

According to this year's Dark Goose Future of Open Source study, top quality was the top reason participant's select open source. This year, top quality was in fifth place. As tasks gain enthusiasts, more people promote enhanced balance, finding or solving bugs and optimizing connections. Actually, many open source resources are now as simple to set up as their exclusive counterparts. Easier, if you take into account the point that in many cases no buy or purchasing procedure is involved. Feature set According to an evaluation from the A Linux systematic Platform, 80% of an organization's strategy to improve their use of A Linux systems over the next five decades, while only 20% strategy to improve their use of Windows. The number of organizations using A Linux systematic for objective crucial workloads increased from 60% truly, to 73% this year. But, according to the A Linux systematic Platform evaluation, it was only the second most important aspect. The first was the function set. This is an impressive change from the early decades of open source Website Development technological advancement, when the professional items have been usually more complete and effective. Security Security was once considered as a source responsibility, but that has modified. This season, 72% of Black Duck's members said that they particularly choose totally free because of security. The Free Website Development program allows clients to assessment concept for prospective security mistakes. "I really do like the exposure of totally free," says Daniel Polly, business details security formalities at First Standard bank. "But more so, when a program is getting details, I do like the factor that with totally free you can see what's going on in that details flow. Commercial providers are now being pushed to coordinate what open source can offer, both in protection and in other areas, he contributes. Faster innovation Traditional application providers create and create their items in-house. Free providers, however, aren't starting from zero and they innovate on top of a common base. "Open source Website Development provides an application foundation that relieves the need to start growth tasks from the beginning. It can be personalized for specific reasons which can help speed up the growth procedure. Scalability Traditional exclusive application is often targeted at the needs of a particular market section, such as, business or SMB. Free tasks generally don't experience from this problem since they're usually designed around client specifications. As a common stereotype, we began with an IT central source designed almost entirely on open source Website Development technological advancement. The key aspect for us besides the cost benefits was scalability. We needed a structure that could help powerful growth from the beginning of the information technology. We began with an IT central source designed almost entirely on technological advancement.