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The Eye on Retail Information Systems
February 28, 2010
Volume 19 Issue 5


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Last year was an interesting one for POS shipments. Department stores purchased 24 percent fewer systems than the prior year and bar restaurants bought 19 percent fewer, according to a new report from IHL. Those were the biggest segment drops, while the only two segments to increase at all-and even then, only at 2 percent-were quick-service restaurants and warehouse club chains.



Industry innovator Starwood Hotels & Resorts, Inc. today announced an unprecedented Smart Check-In pilot program at its much-talked-about, tech-savvy Aloft Hotels brand that allows travelers to skip the front desk at check-in and head directly to their rooms. Made possible through a partnership with VingCard Elsafe, the Smart Check-In caters to a new generation of guests on the go who are more interested in high-tech than high-touch service. Technology has been a vital component of the brand's DNA from day one, when Aloft Hotels debuted in virtual reality on Second Life.



Mercadona will be the first retailer to test Wincor Nixdorf's new prototype of a fully automated checkout in the retailer's laboratory later this month.



Micros Systems announced that Ruby Tuesday has expanded its enterprise solution with Micros iCare for coupon management.



Precidia Technologies Inc. announced that M&W Foods, a franchisee of Yum! Brands Inc. with 21 quick-service restaurants, selected Precidia's TransNet payment engine to integrate credit and debit card processing with electronic cash register systems in KFC restaurants. The solution allows these restaurants to easily route debit and credit card transactions to any processor using existing systems, with full security, and a suite of management tools that simplify administrative tasks and prevent theft.



ALPHA BAY today announced a multi-year technology agreement with AutoZone. Under the agreement, Alpha Bay is providing retail computing functionality with its AIRS Enterprise product. "AIRS enables a more productive, efficient, and collaborative workplace for AutoZone," remarks Alpha Bay's CEO and Founder, Jack Blount. "It will allow for the retirement of their legacy store software applications and potentially reduce their IT maintenance, driving significant cost savings throughout AutoZone's 4200+ stores and associated e-Commerce channels."



Radiant Systems, Inc. today announced that it has launched Aloha Restaurant Guard a powerful application within its Hosted Solutions suite that helps restaurant operators better control operations and increase their profit by as much as 5 percent. The application analyzes point-of-sale data and transactions to identify common restaurant employee scams and fraudulent activities.



Now retailers without a lot of space in their stores needn't forgo self-checkout units. Retail automation provider ECR Software Corp. this week unveiled its best-in-class, small-footprint self-checkout solution at the 2010 National Grocers Association Synergy Showcase. The QUICKcheck kiosk is the smallest self-checkout unit on the market today with automatic weight security, according to Boone, N.C.-based ECRS.



MICROS Systems, Inc. is pleased to announce that Planet Smoothie has selected MICROS as its exclusive preferred vendor for a point-of-sale solution. Planet Smoothie will deploy the MICROS Restaurant Enterprise Solution, as well as mymicros.net for business intelligence, to all new restaurants, and will retrofit all existing locations as required.



Today Epson introduces its new TM-T88V thermal printer, the only POS thermal receipt printer available today with ENERGY STAR qualified configurations, and the newest addition to Epson's best-selling TM-T88 POS printer series. With an industry-leading, four-year warranty and print speeds up to 50% faster than the previous model, Epson's TM-T88V offers solid reliability along with advanced, full-featured printing functionality and is ideally suited for a broad array of retail and food service applications.



HP today announced the expansion of its extensive retail publishing portfolio with new partners and solutions designed to help retailers profitably grow their in-store photo offerings and capitalize on the projected $73 billion retail photo opportunity.



The Los Angeles Angels captured their third straight American League Western division title with more than just spectacular performance on the field. A recent upgrading of Angel Stadium of Anaheim is now complete and includes the latest Panasonic display technologies to further enhance the fan experience. Panasonic's team of experienced engineers and solution consultants worked with Angels' executive and facility management to devise an upgrade plan to implement and deliver a new audio visual experience.



UTC RETAIL announced today that The Shtofman Company, Inc. has selected UTC RETAIL's 3100 Series, a next generation All-in-One touchscreen product, for their footwear chain. The rollout is underway and will include professional and hardware maintenance services including staging and integration of all systems and a three-year hot swap maintenance program to insure the efficient operation at all of their locations.



At this year's FS/TEC 2010, Panasonic will demonstrate how its integrated management solutions and advanced technology deliver new possibilities for better store operation to the quick service and hospitality industry. Panasonic will feature the recently released POS workstation, Lite-ray, as well as the flagship Stingray workstation, the Attune drive-thru communications system and the Virtual Site Manager integrated video/POS system.



Citizen Systems America Corporation expands its portfolio of Next Best Printing Solutions with the introduction of the CL-S700DT barcode/label printer, the CT-S851 front exit receipt printer and the CT-S601 value receipt printer. All of these new products are backwards compatible with previous Citizen models and fully plug and play with current competitor's models.



Criminals hid bank card-skimming devices inside gas pumps -- in at least one case, even completely replacing the front panel of a pump -- in a recent wave of attacks that demonstrate a more sophisticated, insidious method of stealing money from unsuspecting victims filling up their gas tanks.



PAR Tech Inc. has launched the company's Boundless Hospitality initiative, which was unveiled at the FSTEC Conference in Long Beach, Calif. The initiative includes new solution offerings and an integrated partner program focused on enhancing restaurant technology's ability to help operators solve key new industry challenges and support sweeping changes in consumer behavior.



PAR Tech, Inc. today launched its EverServ family, which is a key element of the Boundless Hospitality by PAR business initiative for improving restaurant operations to support changing industry dynamics and customer demand patterns. The EverServ family of business systems includes new hardware, software and service solutions that are being unveiled this week at the FSTEC Conference in Long Beach, California.



More than 1,000 grocery stores and just under 10,000 lanes in the U.S. are now using LaneHawk to increase profits, according to maker Evolution Robotics Retail. The LaneHawk loss-prevention system, built on Microsoft's Windows Server operating system, uses video analysis to identify and ring up articles in a shopping cart's bottom-of-basket ("BOB") to ensure they are not omitted from the order and accidentally given away.



Routinely packing 300 seats and a large bar within 10,000 square foot restaurants, Lucille's Smokehouse Bar-B-Que serves generous portions of slow smoked meats with a choice of sauces, a dozen side dishes, and a number of desserts. In addition to supporting an extensive lunch and dinner menu of more than 100 items, the entire menu is available family style, which ensures the seating of many groups. Always offering guests choices, Lucille's also provides carry out, online ordering, and catering services.



During the 2009 holiday season, the M Resort Spa Casino, one of the newest resort-casinos to open in Las Vegas, wanted to provide 3,000 of its loyal casino guests with retail gift cards to the resort. While some might have thought that loading 3,000 individual gift cards with varying denominations would seem too daunting a task, hotel management was able to load the retail cards in less than five minutes with a few clicks on the Internet.





Coca-Cola is rolling out a "shelf-savvy marketing" initiative that leverages the power of its special brand to evoke fond memories among consumers. The program aims to connect with all shoppers in the store - whether they are singles on a quick trip or families stocking up for the week.



MGM MIRAGE has partnered with ESS Analysis and A.T. Kearney to take customer database "mining" capabilities to a new level and further enhance guest loyalty programs.



Teradata Corporation announced today that United Supermarkets has selected Teradata to meet its growing and comprehensive enterprise information requirements.



Brookshire Grocery Co. (BGC) has teamed up with a consumer-centric analytic services company in an effort to enhance its ability to leverage shopper card data.



Regional independent United Supermarkets plans to deploy a new data warehouse system to meet the growing and comprehensive enterprise information requirements of the chain.



United Supermarkets, LLC has begun using the NuVal Nutritional Scoring System in all of its stores across its United Supermarkets, Market Street, and Amigos United grocery banners. The rollout marks the program's first use by a Texas grocer.





Weis Markets has relaunched and upgraded its Web site, which now enables visitors to access online ordering options for gift cards and party platters, refill prescriptions, and peruse the latest healthy-living news.



Martha Stewart Living Omnimedia, Inc. has launched an iPhone app that gives iPhone and iPod touch users access to thousands of Everyday Food magazine recipes that can be shared, saved, and organized into mobile shopping lists.



CVS announces plans to roll out a new Pharmacy Retail system, RX Connect, which acts as a consumer engagement engine in its stores. The consumer engagement engine, which the pharmaceutical chain calls CCE, provides CVS with a single view of the patient.



Charming Shoppes, Inc. today announced that it has rolled out a major ecommerce upgrade with the debut of a single check-out linking four Charming Shoppes websites: lanebryant.com, cacique.com, fashionbug.com, and catherines.com. Free shipping is available for customers who choose to pick up their package at any of the Company's 2,100 store locations. Shipping is also available to customer's homes for a flat $7 shipping rate.



Dots will bring interactive merchandising technology to its Web site by allowing customers to track fashions, search for product availability and be notified when the merchandise arrives at a nearby store.



iCongo Inc. announced that Calumet Photographic the trusted resource for professional photographers and advanced amateurs alike, has selected the iCongo E-Commerce Platform as the backbone of its online global presence.



In less than six months, online restaurant reservation site OpenTable has seated an additional one million diners via its mobile apps. In late October, OpenTable had reached the milestone of seating one million diners via its mobile offerings, a year after its iPhone app launched. It took only four and a half months to seat another million diners. Additionally, the site says that based on an estimation of a $50 average check per diner, OpenTable claims that diners using its mobile applications have generated more than $100 million in revenue for its restaurant partners.



Hanover Direct has selected an on-demand e-commerce solution from Demandware for its direct-to-consumer online strategy.



CORESense announced that its ecommerce platform supports the feature and functionality needed for best practices website designs and usability. Retailers, working with CORESense's experienced implementation team, create ecommerce websites that optimize site traffic and conversion rates to grow their online revenue. Today over 75 retailers are utilizing CORESense's ecommerce platform, including merchandising, CRM and marketing and order management technology to build and manage their successful ecommerce businesses.





Reflexis Systems Inc. today announced that Marks and Spencer has rolled out Reflexis Workload Optimizer across its UK store portfolio.



Hara today announced that Safeway Inc. has selected Hara to help it identify and implement economic measures to reduce its energy usage and carbon footprint. Safeway is in the initial stages of deploying Hara Environmental and Energy Management (EEM) to consolidate energy and environmental data onto a single platform and establish an environmental system of record.



DealerTrack Systems, Inc. today announced that Jaguar Land Rover North America LLC intends to integrate its dealer communications platform with the DealerTrack Dealer Management System during 2010.



Polaris Retail Infotech Ltd. today announced the launch of Linux powered Retail Store Management solution "iStore Linux". PRIL has signed up Samsonite to rollout iStore Linux in its 60 exclusive brand outlets across India. iStore is available on all Linux flavors present in the market. The combination of SOA based iStore application on Linux system can potentially bring down the set-up and running cost of retail store software by 50%.





When Royal Caribbean's Oasis of the Seas set sail from Helsinki on its maiden voyage in December 2009, the cruise ship offered its passengers more than two 40-foot-long surfing pools, a zip line, a 30-foot-tall rock-climbing wall and a host of other amenities. The 1,200-foot-long vesselthe world's largest cruise ship-also provided its customers with an RFID-based application that offers families and other groups a way to track their members.



VingCard Elsafe has completed the installation of its VISION by VingCard system, a flexible hotel locking system with intuitive touch screen technology, Signature RFID by VingCard contactless electronic door locks and Infinity II by Elsafe electronic in-room safes at the new Venezuela Marriott Hotel Playa Grande in Catia la Mar.



ODIN today announced the completion of its 300th successful RFID project. The project is a global data center tracking project for one of the world's top banks and follows a recent contract award by the United States Air Force. The Data Center project is another in a series of RFID IT Asset Tracking solutions ODIN has deployed similar to the work at the U.S. Department of State.





John Lewis is implementing an order management system to improve its ordering and returns operation in an effort to offer a seamless service across its shopping channels.



LOG-NET, Inc. today announced that Mohawk Home, a division of Aladdin Manufacturing, has selected the company's enterprise supply chain management solution and Importer Security Filing services.



Golden State Foods has selected Par Logistics Management Systems to provide its cold chain management system to GSF's food distribution network.



Halfords sources products from around the world as well as the UK, with high participation of own brand products. Halfords CEO, David Wild has announced a series of initiatives aimed at delivering competitive advantage for Halfords. "Reducing our cost of sourcing and delivery is a significant route for us to create value for customers in the year ahead," he said. "We have looked for efficiencies in every area of our supply chain to help give us competitive advantage and deliver a better service."



Walmart's alliance with Li & Fung, which shifts a portion of the sourcing responsibility and manpower off Walmart's plate, is already showing "early benefits," according to the company.



JDA Software Group, Inc. today announced that Silicon Image, Inc. has selected Planning On Demand, a solution developed by i2 Technologies, Inc., to drive integrated demand and supply planning across its global supply chain.



SPS Commerce today announced that The Sportsman's Guide, a leading catalog and internet retailer of outdoor gear and clothing, has used SPS Commerce's Trading Partner Enablement solution, to automate their order, shipping and invoicing processes with more than 500 of their high-volume vendors in 2009.



Cape Systems Group announced that it has implemented a transportation management system for hair-care retailer Regis Corp.



Marsh Supermarkets, LLC, is partnering with Revionics to better price and promote based on Revionics customer-centric, demand management pricing platform. Leveraging Revionics advanced pricing analytics and scenario planning capabilities, Marsh will fine-tune their price strategies and promotional events to appeal to localized markets, with the goal of building sales and customer loyalty in a difficult economy.



In this partnership, Glanbia will license LLamasoft's strategic planning software, Supply Chain Guru, and will contract LLamasoft's consulting services to assist with the initial network design initiative.



Delhaize Belgium has awarded Accenture a multi-year contract to support the implementation of an integrated supply chain enterprise resource planning platform. Financial terms of the agreement were not disclosed.



J. Alexander (Sandy) Douglas Jr., president of Coca-Cola North America, and Rollin Ford, executive vice president and chief information officer for Walmart will deliver keynote addresses at the 10th annual U Connect Conference on June 8, 2010, host organizations GS1 US and VICS announced today.



KSS Ltd. today announced that it is now actively working in Brazil with the assistance of ValorArt Ltda., a strategic partner based in Rio de Janeiro. The two companies are jointly working to deliver KSS' extensive software applications (PriceNet and RackPrice), analytics and pricing services to fuels wholesalers, distributors and retailers in the region.



RedPrairie Corporation has announced Guangxi China Post Logistics has selected RedPrairie's Warehouse Management solution to direct operations in its 8,000 square meter distribution center in Guangxi. Guangxi China Post hopes to use RedPrairies solution to improve its DC's efficiency and inventory accuracy.



NGC today announced the introduction of its new Vendor Payment Automation software, designed to streamline and automate the process of matching documents and approving vendor invoices in global trade logistics.





Speculation has been spreading throughout the industry for some time, and now it's official: Walgreens has reached an agreement to acquire Manhattan-based retailer Duane Reade in a cash deal valued at nearly $1.1 billion.



Don't be shocked if you can't find your favorite salad dressing or mouthwash on your next trip to Wal-Mart.



Sears Holdings Corp. today announced the launch of a new strategic initiative for the Sears Automotive business. The Independent Sears Auto Center franchise program offers automobile dealers the opportunity to operate licensed Sears Auto Centers, bringing the Sears brand, buying power, distribution network, systems and corporate support to automotive aftermarket businesses.





NEXTEP SYSTEMS announced record fourth quarter sales, profitable 2009 operations, and a four year compound annual growth rate in excess of 100%.



Cisco Systems Inc. today said it will not renew its systems integrator contract with Hewlett-Packard Co., meaning HP it will no longer be a certified reseller or service partner after April 30.



RedPrairie Holding, Inc. announced today that it has entered into a definitive agreement to be acquired by a fund affiliated with New Mountain Capital, L.L.C., a leading private equity firm. This acquisition will enable RedPrairie to accelerate its already rapid growth rate while enhancing its commitment to customer success.



The global chip industry will rebound sharply from the global recession and post 20% year-on-year growth in 2010, market researcher Gartner said Thursday.



Citizen Systems America has announced a new distribution agreement with BlueStar. The partnership strengthens Citizen Systems America's channel and market presence and provides BlueStar with a robust and reliable direct manufacturing source of Printing Solutions.



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