Our Product Pick

CipherLab (Plano, TX) has shipped its smartphone-like touch mobile computer, the RS30. Running Android 4.4, the RS30 has Cortex Quad-Core CPU at 1.3 GHz, 1-GB RAM, 8-GB Flash, and Micro SD. With 4.7-inch capacitive touchscreen protected by Gorilla Glass 3, it features an extra-protective boot for ruggedness. A full suite of communications--including 802.11b/g/n--ensures location roaming, with one- and two-dimensional scanning, eight-megapixel camera, and NFC/RFID for data collection. With 8-to-10-hour, 3100-mAh Lithium-Ion battery, the RS30 weighs 8.8 oz. According to CipherLab, this device was "precisely designed to meet the demands of the customer-facing mobile workers in field sales, field service, retail, and healthcare."

CipherLab's RS30 Series

COMPANY BUSINESS

Eyes on Elo

Heading into the new year, Elo Touch Solutions (Menlo Park, CA) will double down on VARs and POS. In conversation with RRN.Com, Trent Waterhouse, Chief Marketing Officer, and Jeff Burroughs, Director of North American Channel Sales, shared details of both new products and an enhanced partner program. "Keeping POS Profitable," will serve as summary.

In October, Elo presented its PayPoint, an "ECR for the Cloud," which targets the market between iPad and POS. Now two Elo All-in-One POS terminals have been introduced: the E-Series and X-Series. Aimed at hospitality, E-Series features Intel Celeron Quad-Core CPU, 15-inch widescreen display, 2-4 GB RAM with 320-GB HDD, and Windows. With Intel Core i3/i5/i7 CPU, X-Series carries 15- or 17-inch display, 2-16 GB RAM, 1-TB HDD or 128-GB SSD, and Windows. In addition to the IntelliTouch Surface Acoustic Wave and AccuTouch Five-Wire Resistive touch technology for E-Series, X-Series also offers IntelliTouch Pro Projected Capacitive. In another area, digital signage, Elo has rolled out "Elo Interactive," which bundles hardware, software, and cloud management while leveraging existing mobile apps and marketing campaigns in order to facilitate deployments to the SMB.

New X-Series All-in-One POS

MW: Call Me Cayan

Merchant Warehouse (Boston, MA), one of the leading providers of payment technologies and processing services, and an active player in our channel, has unveiled its new name, "Cayan." This new brand will be on full display at next week's National Retail Federation (NRF) Show in New York City. It was propelled in large part by the success of the company's Genius Customer Engagement Platform, launched in 2012, which provides maximum flexibility among payment methods--whether card, NFC, QR Codes, or mobile wallets.

"The launch of Genius was a defining moment for our company. We changed the market, empowering businesses to adopt the latest payment technologies without overhauling their point-of-sale systems or jeopardizing security. By pioneering mobile payment acceptance, we were the first to show businesses that the payment creates an engagement opportunity," declared Henry Helgeson, CEO and Founder of Cayan. "As we built Genius, we began to realize we needed a name that better communicated our bold vision. So, we engaged our employees, customers, and partners to help us understand what our brand stands for today and how it can evolve in the future. In the end, 'Cayan' stood out as a unique name that perfectly captured our spirit of innovation and drive."

"Our original name served us well when our primary business focus was credit card transactions and merchant services. But as the market evolved, we've gone on to push the boundaries of payments--including how and where they occur," added Chief Revenue Officer, Ken Paull. "We selected 'Cayan' as the name that will lead us into the next phase of growth for our business. We like that the word is an empty vessel, capable of taking on new meaning as we unlock the possibilities of payments."

Henry Helgeson, CEO of Cayan (Formerly Merchant Warehouse)

Worth Your While

NRF's Big Show - Annual Conference
National Retail Federation
January 11-14
New York City

Inspire 2015
Retail Solutions Providers Association
January 25-28
Maui, Hawaii

TransAct 15
Electronic Transactions Association
March 31 - April 2
San Francisco

Retail Realm Technology Conference
"Microsoft for the Retail Sector"
April 25-27
Las Vegas

NRA Show 2015
National Restaurant Association
May 16-19
Chicago

ALL IN THE FAMILY

An Arbor Full of Android

Arbor Solution has debuted its newest rugged tablet with Android, the Gladius 10. An easy-to-view 10-inch TFT color LCD with 1280x800 HD resolution and projected capacitive five-point touchscreen has damage-resistant Gorilla Glass 3. Powered by Android Version 4.4, Gladius 10 carries Octa-Core Cortex A7 CPU at 2 GHz, with 2-GB RAM, and 16-GB Flash. "The key to success, along with a smaller design and advanced features, is durability and connectivity," shared Brian Yurkiw, VP at Arbor Solution. Based in Taiwan, Arbor has offices in California, Massachusetts, Texas, and Canada.

To that end, Gladius 10 measures 11 in. (L) x 7.5 in. (W) x 0.9 in. (D) and weighs 2.3 lbs. A full suite of communications has been furnished, including Bluetooth 4.0+EDR, 802.11b/g/n Wi-Fi, 3G WWAN, and GPS. As data collection, there's front and rear cameras (two- and thirteen-megapixels), one- or two-dimensional barcode scanner with physical trigger button, and NFC/RFID. As well, Micro USB, Micro SD, and Mini HDMI, added by two SIM Card Slots, extend its versatility.

Gladius 10 Rugged Tablet From Taiwan

Capping Your Bluetooth

Laird (Stroudsburg, PA) has released its BT900 BT4.0 Intelligent Module for Bluetooth. With dual-mode capability, this new device addresses both Classic Bluetooth and Bluetooth Low Energy (BLE). With the company's "Smart Basic" programming language, it also reduces development time. For markets, Laird lists barcode scanners, POS, and medical devices.

Measuring 0.5 in. (W) x 0.75 in. (L), the BT900 Series furnishes Cortex M3 CPU, data rate of 3 MBPS, range of 330 ft., and interfaces for UART, I2C, SPI, ADC, and GPIO. Developed to optimize performance, the BT900 has been configured to balance throughput versus power efficiency, added by sleep mode triggers. In addition, the BT900 may be linked to the BL600 and BL620 Series of single-mode modules from Laird, which also utilize Smart Basic.

"Laird is thrilled to release the new BT900 Series of Intelligent BT/BLE modules," volunteered Jonathan Kaye, Product Director. "The BT900 Series represents the culmination of our two-year program of investment and development. It delivers OEMs with fully configurable balance of RF performance, BT/BLE functionality, and power consumption, in order to quickly and easily leverage wireless capabilities to their embedded device."

New Dual-Mode Bluetooth Module From Laird

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ALLIANCES

A (Really) Big Brother for Partner Tech

Significant news from Partner Tech, one of the long-standing channel suppliers of POS, which has received financial backing from manufacturing behemoth, Qisda. This new relationship is anchored on Qisda's acquisition of 25% of Partner Tech, with Peter Chen, GM of Qisda, named the new Chairman of the Board of Directors of Partner Tech. Headquartered in Taiwan, Qisda provides electronic products for commercial, medical, and industrial applications, including LCD monitors, All-In-One PCs, digital signage, scanners, multifunctional printers, and tablets.

Qisda's $23 billion in annual revenue and newest six-million-square-foot, ISO-9001-certified manufacturing facility will support Partner Tech's plans to capitalize on growth opportunities in POS. "Increasingly, the retail technology marketplace is demanding design-forward, durable, and cost-effective hardware solutions," stated Sandra Hsia, President of Partner Tech USA. "As a world leader in electronics manufacturing and consumer and industrial design, Qisda will enable Partner Tech to accelerate product innovation while simultaneously reducing costs through manufacturing scale and other synergies."

Partner Tech Receives Backing From Qisda

OS Unlocks the Code

Code Corporation (Salt Lake City, UT) now supports the new BarCode OS software suite from ID Integration (Mukilteo, WA). Configured for industrial manufacturing environments, primarily, BarCode OS improves monitoring and validation of components with an Item Unique Identification (UID). As many readers know, such two-dimensional Data Matrix Code has been mandated by the U.S. Department of Defense for inventory, service records, and the lifecycle of parts.

In particular, BarCode OS eliminates the need for middleware by allowing end-users to configure and operate the scanner via web-based applications. It has been certified as compatible with the entire product family of barcode readers from Code Corporation, including the Wireless Bluetooth CR3600. As benefits, the two parties cited plug-and-play functionality, built-in firewall, advanced data parsing and filtering capabilities, and fully automated image capture with auto-file naming.

Web-Based Configuration for Scanners Like Code's CR3600

Code Corner

Loftware (Portsmouth, NH) has boosted its family of labeling software with Loftware Print Server 10.2.1, Loftware Label Manager 10.2.1, Loftware Connector for Oracle 4.1, and Loftware Universal Connector 4.1. These offer enhancements to business rules and character-level formatting, as well as support for Windows Server 2012 R2. In the case of Loftware Connector for Oracle 4.1 and Loftware Universal Connector 4.1, new business rules extend data import and export capabilities and introduce "execute unless" logic. Additional enhancements include advanced JDBC Driver handling, proxy support for load-balancing environments, and compatibility with Oracle 12c and Java 1.8. In the case of Loftware Print Server 10.2.1 and Loftware Label Manager 10.2.1, new character-level formatting enables users to change attributes such as bold, italic, underline, superscript, subscript, font, font size, color, text direction, and line breaks on any character or words in the text field--helping to address the European Union's Regulation EU1169. To further assist customers, LPS 10.2 and LLM 10.2 now offer the nine pictograms required for compliance with the Globally Harmonized System of Classification and Labeling of Chemicals (GHS). "As the industry leader, we feel it's important to continually enhance our enterprise labeling solutions to help our customers address evolving business requirements," reflected Josh Roffman, VP of Marketing and Product Management for Loftware. "We maintain close relationships with our customers to ensure that we fully understand the scope of their existing labeling challenges and are prepared to meet their needs."

ENVIRONMENTS/PLATFORMS

The World According to JDA

JDA Software Group (Scottsdale, AZ) has signed authorized reseller agreements with eight leading consulting firms. This list includes Accelogix, Advantage2Retail (A2R), Bridge Solutions Group, Open Sky Group, Plantensive, Retail Process Engineering (RPE), Snapshot Design, and Vaco Supply Chain Solutions. All have "specialized expertise in promoting, pricing, selling, and implementing" solutions from JDA Software Group, supposedly.

"Resellers are instrumental to JDA's success, and I'm excited to add these eight companies to our global reseller network," commented Thad Zylka, Regional VP for JDA Software. "They will increase our coverage and support our continued growth. We are delighted to partner with them to jointly provide JDA's leading software solutions to our clients worldwide." JDA, of course, supplies end-to-end planning and execution for retail and the supply chain.

Decision Support Workbench by JDA

Nova's New Trajectory

Nova Point-of-Sale (Miami, FL) will offer free software subscription for its retail package. Leveraging resources of its parent company, Granbury Solutions, Nova POS has pursued relationships with advertising partners to add relevant coupon and banner ad functionality to its software. This will allow retailer costs for the software to be eliminated--as long as processing takes place through one of its preferred banks.

Users that wish to keep their existing merchant processors can opt for paid, month-to-month subscription. In addition to the new pricing offer, Nova POS has added inventory management which may be accessed from any device, including tablets running iPad and Android. Also introduced in this new update are training wizards, improved user interface, wider reporting tools, and the built-in media platform. Interested parties may now enroll in the developer's "beta wish list."

Tom Bronson, CEO of Granbury Solutions, said many of the new features resulted from feedback from existing customers. "I'm delighted to provide our existing and future clients with added functionality and the opportunity to experience Nova POS at no cost," he stated. "It shows our commitment to our customers' needs and our desire to contribute to the advancement of the retail industry." Granbury purchased Nova POS in May.

ISV Offers Free Subscription Service for POS Software

Key Advertiser Links

Be sure to visit these vendors for the latest in channel products and offers for resellers.

POS & Peripherals
Bematech
Harbortouch
Hewlett-Packard
Partner Tech
Pioneer POS
POS BANK USA
Posiflex
PowaPOS
TEAMSable

Barcode & Transaction Printers
Brother Mobile
CognitiveTPG
SATO America
Zebra Technologies

Cash Drawers
MMF POS

Data Collection
CipherLab
Code Corporation
Datalogic
Trimble MCS

Integrated Payment Solutions
Cayan
Datacap Systems
Discover

Keyboards & Mobile POS
Cherry, ZF Electronics Corp

Receipt Printers
Bixolon America
CognitiveTPG
Epson America
Star Micronics

Thermal Printers
Seiko Instruments USA

Touchscreens & Monitors
Elo TouchSystems

INSTALLATIONS

Placing Their Bet With Pivotal Payments

Pivotal Payments (Montreal) will delivery credit and debit card processing services for one of the major thoroughbred horse-racing events, the Breeders' Cup. As exclusive provider, Pivotal Payments will support physical locations such as the Breeder's Cup headquarters in Lexington, Kentucky, online payments and ticketing for the 2015 Breeders' Cup World Championships, and associated nomination and entry fees for Breeders' Cup Races and Betting Challenge.

"With an organization as well-respected as the Breeders' Cup, we understand that their stakeholders expect a certain level of excellence," noted Philip Fayer, CEO/President of Pivotal Payments. "We are very pleased to be able to partner with them and deliver the kind of dedicated service they require. We'd like to also extend our breadth of payment solutions to their other business partners and providers."

Since 2003, Pivotal Payments has grown to 500 employees, 1,500 sales partners, and 70,000 customers, with $12 billion in annual bankcard volume. Its payment platform, powered by GlobalOne and FlexPoint, includes card-not-present, integrated point-of-sale, mobile payments, terminal hardware and software, and value-added merchant services. In December, Pivotal extended next-day funding for all merchants in Canada.

Payment Processing for the Breeders' Cup

Ai2 Takes the Pepsi Challenge

Ai2 (Chicago, IL) will deploy its mobile sales force automation and order management solution, dubbed ProSel, for the Minges Bottling Group. Based in North Carolina, Minges is one of the leading distributors for Pepsi and Mountain Dew, with approximately fifty pre-sales representatives in the field. In adopting ProSel, it consolidated its field force on iPad.

"More and more, distributors across the world are realizing that mobile capability is not a luxury, but a necessity," remarked Douglas Katich, CEO for Ai2. "In a very competitive marketplace, the vendor who has access to the most actionable information in the field will win more business. We're very happy to have Minges Bottling Group join our customer family and we're going to help their team increase productivity." Founded in 1986, Ai2 has more than 100,000 end-users.

In making its decision, the Minges Bottling Group cited upselling features, product images, the ability to display and organize marketing information, and the handling of order guides (segmented lists of products). A particular benefit was barcode scanning, required by the field sales force of Minges. Elsewhere this month, Ai2 announced its support for the SL62 Enterprise Sled for Mini iPad from Honeywell Scanning & Mobility (Fort Mill, SC), now proud owner of Datamax-O'Neil.

Leading Pepsi Bottler and Distributor Adopts iPad-Based Sales Force Automation

Channel Factoid

Calling 2014 the "Year of Shaken Trust," McAfee Labs predicts the major trends in data security for the New Year:

1. Increased use of cyber warfare and espionage tactics.

2. Greater Internet of Things (IoT) attack frequency, profitability, and severity.

3. Privacy debates intensify.

4. Ransomware evolves into the cloud.

5. New mobile attack surfaces and capabilities.

6. POS attacks increase and evolve with digital payments.

7. Shellshock (or Bashdoor) sparks Unix, Linus attacks.

8. Growing exploitation of software flaws.

9. New evasion tactics for sandboxing (separating programs).

.

HELLO GOODBYE

A Dose of O'Donnell for TSC

TSC Auto ID Technology America (Pomona, CA) has enlisted Kevin O'Donnell as its Director of Sales for the U.S. and Canada. A well-known veteran of our channel, with twenty years of experience, O'Donnell served for nine years as Director of Channel Sales for CognitiveTPG. Previous posts have included VP of Sales for Data Collection Products Company, Western Regional Manager for Meto USA (now part of SATO America), and National Sales Manager for Zebra Technologies.

O'Donnell has responsibility for managing the printer vendor's channel of distributors and resellers and will supervise four regional sales managers. "I am tremendously pleased to be joining TSC at this time," he indicated. "I have been familiar with the quality of TSC's products for many years and the new products we are introducing will make us a true contender in the U.S. marketplace."

Kevin O'Donnell, Director of Sales, TSC Auto ID Technology America

Oracle Drafts High

Oracle (Redwood Shores, CA) has added another member to its "dream team" for retail and hospitality. Assembled by Mark Hurd, Oracle's President (and former head of HP and NCR), this recruitment effort builds upon the recent buy of Micros Systems. As its newest member, Jill Puleri has joined as SVP and GM for Oracle Retail. Puleri will report to Mike Webster, Oracle's SVP and GM for Retail and Hospitality (and not by chance, former SVP and GM of Retail and Hospitality for NCR).

"Building the best team--deep in retail expertise--is how we deliver on our commitment to delivering high-quality, mission-critical solutions," relayed Webster. "Jill is a proven leader, and her focus on customer success will strengthen our community. With the combination of Oracle and Micros, we are well positioned to offer solutions that will differentiate retailers in today's competitive market."

Having held various leadership positions in sales, marketing, and consulting, Puleri brings over twenty years of experience in the retail industry. Most recently, she worked as VP, Retail Global Industry Leader, Global Business Services, for IBM, preceded by her role as VP of IBM Retail Store Solutions. In October, Oracle hired Ray Carlin, former VP and GM of Retail Solutions for HP, and former VP of NCR, as its VP of Strategy and Solutions for Hospitality.

Jill Puleri, SVP and GM, Oracle Retail