NCR Corp is using Microsoft Corp’s Windows NT and Sybase Inc’s SQL Anywhere mobile and embedded database technology for retail point-of-sale applications at the US Postal Service. NCR won the USPS Stage II contract extension, worth at least $69m and possibly up to $176m, at the end of June. The first round was won by NCR and IBM Corp in January 1998, said at the time to be the largest roll-out of retail terminals in the US. Over three stages scheduled to finish within five years, 73,000 POS systems are expected to be deployed in 20,000 postal retail units. NCR is supplying Pentium-based retail workstations, electronic signature capture devices, scanners and printers. Sybase won 12,500 seats of SQL Anywhere from stage one of the project, and says NCR has plans to buy 20,000 seats for stage two.
