| Microsoft updates WEPOS, extends POS support to XP Pro |
Mar. 08, 2006
Microsoft today announced an update to its operating system for point-of-sales/service (POS) environments, and is offering a free download that enhances retail peripheral support for systems based on Windows XP Professional. WEPOS (Windows Embedded for Point-of-Service) Version 1.1 boasts expanded support for both legacy and new peripherals, including the latest RFID, biometrics, and other "cutting edge" technologies, according to the company.
WEPOS, a retail-optimized version of Windows XP Embedded SP2, is the core of Microsoft's "Smarter Retailing" initiative, which is positioned as a set of technologies intended to help retailers improve how they sell and operate through better access to customer and product information. Additionally, Microsoft says that WEPOS simplifies development and deployment of POS systems, and reduces maintenance and upgrade costs, by being the first POS software platform to support plug-and-play peripheral functionality, "the feature most requested by retailers."
Specifically, the platform supports both legacy and emerging POS technologies such as RFID, wireless, networking, and multimedia. Microsoft says that WEPOS also includes strong default security settings including a "hardened" Internet Explorer browser, Windows Logon user authentication, and buffer overrun protection. Another touted advantage of WEPOS is its minimized operating system code size, which reduces system vulnerabilities, according to the company.
WEPOS version 1.1
Among other enhancements, WEPOS v1.1 supports UnifiedPOS (UPOS) version 1.9, said to be a "critical selection criterion" in purchasing new point-of-sales/service (POS) terminals.
The UPOS standard protects retailers' investments by separating the application from the hardware, allowing either hardware or software to be changed out with significantly less programming expense, according to the standard's developer, the Association for Retail Technology Standards (ARTS). UPOS features supported by WEPOS v1.1 include support for devices such as coin dispensers, keylocks, magnetic ink character recognition (MICR), POS power, scales, signature capture, and tone indicators, Microsoft said.
Microsoft cites a recent survey from IHL Consulting Group, a retail and hospitality industry market analyst, that found that up to 45 percent of retailers purchasing new POS terminals want to continue using existing peripherals in order to protect and maximize their existing IT investments. A study by IHL Consulting last year showed that 71 percent of the POS terminals purchased in 2004 ran various Microsoft Windows operating systems, with Windows NT/2000/XP accounting for 56 percent and Windows CE another 15 percent.
POS for .NET now available for XP Pro POS systems
In order to extend its retail-optimized platform capabilities to other Windows operating systems, Microsoft said it is making a free download of the recently released POS for .NET 1.1 available for use on POS systems running Windows XP Professional.
POS for .NET is a class library that provides .NET applications with a simple and consistent interface for communicating with POS peripherals, such as bar code scanners, magnetic card readers, and receipt printers, according to Microsoft. In addition, POS for .NET includes a set of APIs (application programming interfaces) and base classes that can help developers write software components, or service objects, for their POS peripheral devices. POS for .NET is Microsoft's implementation of UPOS version 1.8 for the .NET platform. It is also backward-compatible with existing implementations of UPOS on the Microsoft Windows platform, named OLE for Point of Service (OPOS), Microsoft said.
The free download, available here, will allow POS terminals running Windows XP Professional to benefit from the simplified device management support that was previously only available in WEPOS, Microsoft says.
"We're working with industry leaders to transform POS terminals into next-generation information portals," said Jane Gilson, director of the Mobile and Embedded Devices Division at Microsoft. "The features and functionalities we are introducing in this next version of Windows Embedded for Point of Service help extend and protect our customers' existing investments, while enabling them to benefit from the latest advances."
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