JC Penney Co Inc CIO David Evans told Computergram his company is seeking to replace 55,000 POS registers with new hardware running JavaPOS applications. Conventional cash registers cost between $4,000 and $4,500 each – implying a $250m outlay – but Evans is hoping JavaPOS will lead to the creation of devices that will lower the cost of his IT spending. The US National Retail Federation says its members are mostly using POS systems installed between 1988 and 1992 and are working with eight-to-ten year product cycles. Evans says he’s already got a handful of Windows NT registers running prototype JavaPOS applications in the labs which he expects to roll out to test in 25 stores when ready. As well as printing customer receipts, updating inventory or even running in-store ads, Evans expects new generations of web-based retail applications will also be made available across extranets (the IP internet protocol lingo for WANs) to suppliers who will be able to check when invoices are to be paid or when they must ship a consignment of products. Hard to imagine perhaps, but long-term it could mean a percentage of register operators at your local supermarket re-trained to use web-enabled technologies. Retailers, Evans believes, will also be able to eliminate some operator-dependent functions in customer and supplier inquiry systems. JC Penney will next week roll out a new all-Java version of its on-line – or e-tailing – shopping mall providing reservation services as well as on-line credit authorization. It doesn’t yet use SET secure electronic transation payment technology, believing the standard is not yet robust, well enough defined, or widely supported and implemented. Its current POS devices are NCR registers, effectively MS-DOS- based PCs connected to new back-end NT servers which Evans says will be retained.
