Solving the “All-in-One” Mystery

By: Lisa Terry

Vertical Systems Reseller Magazine

The point of sale is getting smaller. All-in-one terminals, embraced early in hospitality, are growing in popularity among retailers for their small footprint, clean, cable-free aesthetics and easy installation – they can even be mounted on a wall. Sacrifices once made in serviceability and performance have largely been eliminated through improved design, and more software now offers the required touch-screen interface.

All-in-ones are now a foregone conclusion,” says Larry Sampey, general manager of Casio’s Electronic Cash Register Division.

All-in-ones — defined for our purposes as integrated touch screen and processor (see sidebar article on page 28) – still aren’t right for every application. Heavy data entry demands a keyboard – though some use keyboards with their all-in-ones. And modular pieces and parts solutions are the best bet for picking your own components or being open to run several different applications and peripherals.

Here are some trends in all-in-ones that are causing some VARs to reconsider their earlier perceptions of the form factor:

1. Serviceability. With all of that technology jammed into a small space, all-in-ones have been perceived as difficult to service. That’s changed with modular designs that put more commonly replaced parts such as hard drives and motherboards behind secure thumbscrews. On NCR’s RealPOS 70, “the display opens up like a car hood to provide easy access to internal components,” says Bob Doles, RealPOS product line director for NCR.

“In the past you had to do depot service because they were complicated to service,” says Craig Paritz, president of Touch Dynamic. “Now, the focus of all systems is service.”

 ”Servicing and supporting all-in-ones simplifies the task of the support organization since there are not the variety of hardware versions that you may find among PC manufacturers,” says Joel Snyder, North American director of sales for Posiflex. “The all-in-ones are designed to be serviced quickly and efficiently.”

2. Better cooling, faster processors. Cramped quarters used to mean no fans, and that greatly limited the use of hotter, faster processors. That’s changed with designs for higher-end units that enable fan use and use of dual core processors that run cooler. NCR, for example, incorporates a cooling duct that directs air across the processor while protecting the motherboard from contaminants. Kitchens are still a no-fan zone, to avoid pulling in kitchen debris.

Lower-end all-in-ones often still lack fans and require a trade-off in processing power as a result, though this may be fine for the scope of the applications they run. But fanless is entering higher-level machines as well.

3. New touch-screen technology. Resistive and infrared still dominate, but they’ve been joined by more options that offer different strengths and vulnerabilities, giving more options for fitting screen to environment. Elo TouchSystems has introduced acoustic pulse recognition (APR) technology, which offers a durable and responsive glass screen, comparable cost and can be used with any stylus; so far it’s only offered in monitors, not all-in-ones.

4. Lower costs. The $999 price point has been the magic threshold that VARs wanted to see all-in-ones cross over. Touch Dynamic says it’s about to introduce one; it’s called the “Breeze”. The price differential between modular and all-in-ones has dropped to the point that it can be less of a factor for all but the most price-sensitive buyers – often about $150 for comparable systems. “Price is less of an objection than it has been,” says Tim Lindsay, vice president sales and marketing for Dalcom Consulting, an NCR VAR in Greensboro, N.C.

5. Increased reliability. Three-year warranties are basically standard for all-in-ones, and their integrated designs are intended to reduce cable use and points of failure. “Hard drives are a great deal more reliable than they were, and advancements in using compact flash, so there are no moving parts, is coming,” says Roy Barker, vice president sales, Xpient Solutions, a Logic Controls partner in Charlotte, N.C.

6. Bigger screens. Fifteen- and even 17-inch screen sizes are becoming more common in all-in-ones, without significantly increasing the overall size of the machine. The larger screens reduce the need for new windows in applications, boosting productivity and line speed. “In a quick-service environment, the more information you can get on a single screen, the fewer key strokes, the better,” says Andrew King, president of Southern Retail Systems, a Toshiba/TEC VAR in London, Ky., who is also a BlueStar partner.

7. More integrated peripherals. Some manufacturers are boosting the number of peripherals that can be integrated into their units. Biometric readers, wireless radios, speakers and powered USB ports are among the newer options. Elo has even had requests to integrate a cash drawer, although there are no plans to do so right now.

8. Eco-friendly. All-in-ones sporting dual-core processors offer reduced clock speeds, “so you can entertain fanless processors and lower power consumption,” says Alan Outlaw, business line executive, SurePOS portfolio, for IBM Retail Store Solutions. “That saves on the utility bill and reduces the carbon footprint.” Remote system management and utilities that enable remote power off also make a positive energy-saving impact.

9. ECR replacement. Falling price points and compact form factors mean all-in-ones are now winning buyers away from electronic cash registers. “We’re at an inflection point where PC-based POS shipments will exceed ECR shipments,” says IBM’s Outlaw. “We’re trying to capture the transition by providing something similar in feel but more into the Windows-based world.”

10. March into retail. All-in-ones have grown to take 40 percent of the convenience store market and 12 percent of specialty hard goods, according to IHL Consulting. “People like the high-tech look of all-in-ones, even if they don’t offer a significant advantage” in performance, says Jackson Lum, president of Logic Controls.

Elo is seeing use not only at retail POS, but as a thin-client computer serving digital signage functions, says Lorna Wood, worldwide marketing manager for Tyco Electronics’ Elo TouchSystems. Other emerging markets include health care, for administrative and patient check-in, and banking, for training programs, Wood says.

Customers hesitant to embrace the form factor have quickly learned to “get over it, once they see the benefits and ROI. “Once we explain how the hard drive is mounted, the fan, the mean time between failure rates, concerns go away pretty quickly,  and they love the bigger touch screens available,” says Dalcom’s Lindsay.

Perhaps the most important decision point is balancing the benefits of the hardware with future, as-yet-unknown needs. A key step in selecting an all-in-one is to test the application on various models to ensure it meets speed and performance requirements, advises Lum of Logic Controls.

A customer may be fine with an all-in-one with an Intel Celeron 2.5 GHz processor with 2 MB RAM, for example, but five years later decide to move to a new operating system to get some software benefit, such as real-time couponing or labor management, and face whole-terminal, rather than PC-only replacement, says Xpient’s Barker. While he sees a real benefit in all-in-ones, “We’re being challenged by large accounts to operate on existing 8-year-old hardware,” Barker says. “They can’t afford to spend the majority of money on hardware when they want to upgrade software.” Software companies are thus required to write extremely tight, efficient software to meet customer needs while accommodating the limitations and varied vintages of their POS units.

Because of differing priorities, all-in-ones increasingly run the gamut in price, performance and features, giving VARs a wide variety
of choice.

“Our challenge as manufacturers is to build the high-end stuff to deliver the best quality, but buyers don’t always want to pay for it, which is why we offer a family of product,” says Elo’s Wood. Buyers “want it all.”