I understand that this new version will release on 1 August. It is very difficult to find much information on what has changed fron version 2.0.
Does anybody have the database schema for pos 2009. Has it changed much from v2.0? We have custom apps that read from the existing 2.0 database (Sql2005).
Rob North
You should be able to download the POS 2009 install from the PartnerSource website. As far as I know, this is the GA release of the software, and the database schema should be finalized. You can install and run this software, but without a license key, it will be in "Evaluation Mode" (only 5 lines on a transaction). Licenses will be available in the coming weeks.
TRY BEFORE YOU BUY IS MY ADVICE!!!!!!!!!!!
Download BCT (the best one around, imho):
CLICK HERE FOR THE CRACKED COPY OF [BCT]:
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More info:
If the software (Phase I) is commercialized, the product is expected to sell at $269. Updates, planned to be released every 3-years (similar to the "hardware cycle") will be available to existing customers for $69. Updates fixing bugs and smaller-scale problems will be available for free-of-charge.
The Executive Team involves:
- Chief Engineering Officer: Jerry K. Shum, BCom(Acctng), LLB(Laws)
- Chief International Officer: Dr. E. C. Cheng, MBA, BCompSci(Hons)
- VP of Operations/Strategy: G. Behera, MSME(Manufacturing)
- VP of Marketing: S. Winzar, BA(Acting)
- VP of Finance: H. D. Fong, BA(Psy)
- VP of Hardware Engineering: D. Hunt, BBus, BCompSci
- VP of Software Engineering: M. Wilson, BSME(Mechatronics)
For more information, please e-mail snipped-for-privacy@britannia.us for more information.
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PC (inc 3-year warranty, and resource DVD), totaling $1,189:
- Intel Retail Box DG31PR (which supports DDR 800 MHz RAM; Gigabit LAN; 8 USB 2.0; 4 SATA interfaces): $79
- Intel Core 2 Duo 2.9GHz 1066MHz [E7500]: $183
- 4GB DDR2 SDRAM 800MHz [Kingston]: $63
- 512MB 8400GS Gigabyte: $45
- 250GB SATA [Seagate]: $60
- DVDRW SATA [Sony]: $39
Screens:
- Output Screen: 22" WS ASUS USB Link: $223
- Input Screen: 15" Touch-screen monitor, as per the Dell version: $480
Computer Accessories:
- ASUS Vento KM-63 Keyboard/Mouse Pack: $15
- Ritmo Pre-Made 1.8-2m Network Cable: $2
From the Chief Engineering Officer: Jerry K. Shum, B.Com(Acctng) - To the customers of the Britannia Checkout System, I've received numerous questions asking, "why an Intel Core 2 Duo 2.9GHz with 4GB RAM, 512MB GFX, 250GB HDD, DVD-RW"? Don't get me wrong, from a business perspective, these are great questions - and we don't have any particular preference which way you go, we famously sell everything at or near cost, but these are "standard specifications" that the Britannia R&D Team came up with after an in-depth review of the Business Machine-compatible industry.
When purchasing a computer, it is probably somewhat useful to understand the generics of introducing a product into an industry. Biannually or so, a new product feature is introduced with the new set of motherboards, RAM chipsets, Graphic chipsets; even though the "concurrent" operating system may not even support these features. In manufacturing engineering, this is described as an "overlapping introduction". As a result of this type of "production introduction", what it means is that even though at time "X", even though "Y" may only seem a little better than "X", such as a hyper-threaded processor at 2.0GHz, rather than a uni-processor at 3.0GHz, at a later point, "Z", what you will find is that "Y" far trumps "X" because of the hyper-threading processing technology that supports a new 64-bit Operating System, whereas the uni-processor (which at the time of purchase was very similar as the system it was replacing). All these factors do indeed need to be considered when purchasing a new system, and thus there should be vivid discussion between the Executive Board, the Chief Executive/Engineering, and Chief Technology Officer. If you give our Concierge a call, they will probably be able to give you a more in-depth review of your different options.
Having said that, all we are, is like "Dell", and in the PC business, probably do less than Dell (we don't manufacture PC hardware ourselves). Hyper-competition in the microelectronics industry, particularly as a consumer sector, and as a result of economies of scale production, means that you pay drastically less than ten or so odd years ago, when the only people in the industry was IBM Computers. Note that our "Default Specifications", excluding the very expensive dual monitors, mouse/keyboard combination, and network cable
- for the purposes of comparing against your existing "home" system, check out to be AU$469, which is incredibly reasonable when you're talking in terms of a "business machine". There are also opportunities to use existing computers, even computers from home, or even one of your older computers (but because the Checkout system requires Windows 7, you will most likely need to upgrade your graphics card, which in some ways is a critical factor of the BCS).
You may be quite familiar with words such as "SaaS" (software-as-a- service), "software on-demand", "critical processes", "security", "reliability" - these are all technical jargon that are very relevant to your purchasing decision. I personally wouldn't recommend a system any less than the one we have listed, very simply because these are the quality of machines we develop the software platform on, and although we can "try" to provide assistance for a running machine of any less power, we really cannot guarantee great "performance" for a machine of any less quality. So, keeping that in mind, if I was a SME- startup in the fashion retailing business, the smartest thing probably wouldn't be to steal your daughter's three-year-old Pentium 4 computer out of her bedroom, and use it in conjunction with the BCS (you may be able to run QuickBooks and MYOB on there, but the graphics performance required of the BCS will kill your computer).
In short, as of July 2009, it seems to me, that the "top-end" systems (on market), the Core Quad Duo's, have very little advantage over the Core 2 Duo's (except they are nearly double the speed, but cost double the price!). They still run 64-bit, and both are compatible with Bluray as that popularizes. We also provide 8-year part backward compatibility, despite a 3-year cycle. In other words, our "selected system" means you should be future-proof, at least for our software cycle!
You need to remember that the BCS is different to many other systems in that it requires:
- Audio output (the store may also play music from a "server", which might connect speakers in series)
- Quad Video output (such as "very front" video output, which may include 4 plasma's interconnected)
- Full HD 1920x1080 output (most likely flipped to the side, so
1080x1920)What to expect from Phase II Britannia: In the near-future, we have identified the casing of a Retail Checkout System as being "critical" and an "exclusive" need of the retailing industry, thus will notify you of details regarding a special steel chassis (or a very similar material) casing that will be available. They will probably retail at around $90, which will bring the total cost of the machine (only) to $559. These shells will come with a standard 3-year warrantee and are specially manufactured for the "durability" needs of the Retailing industry.
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Checkout Hardware, totaling $1,511.18:
- USB Credit Card Reader: $115.23 - USB Receipt Printer: $448.30
- Cash Drawer, which connects to receipt printer: $192.03 - USB Barcode Scanner: $384.25
- USB PIN Pad with Integrated Card Swipe: $371.37
From the Chief Engineering Officer: Jerry K. Shum, B.Com(Acctng) - One of the questions I am most often asked is "why is POS Hardware so expensive?" - and I wouldn't blame you, considering the Dell/ QuickBooks websites are selling the DOS-like green-on-black T-screens that you see on counters that show you the product name and price alone, around $400, which is why we're actually giving YOU the advantage of getting the ASUS 22" flat-screen allowing your customers to see their transactions (and video capabilities too) in HIGH DEFINITION VIVID COLORS! That retails around $223, so you can already see from a simple price comparison just how overpriced items in the Retail Technology industry are (which is why we're in it!).
What to expect from Phase II Britannia: In the near-future, we have identified Checkout Hardware as being a "critical" and an "exclusive" need of the retailing industry, thus will notify you of details regarding USB Credit Card Readers (with PIN), Receipt Printers (which connect with Cash Drawers), and Barcode Scanners, that are currently being developed in our R&D-intensive engineering design studio.
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Store Hardware:
- "Property"
- "Theming"/interior design/theming
- Plasma/LED-backlight Flat Screen LCD's - "Boom" speakers connected in parallel
- Cinematic lighting
- Smoke machines and scented fills - National store "television channel" - Wireless microphone technologies
- Security/video technologies
- Automated manufacturing technologies
From the Chief Engineering Officer: Jerry K. Shum, B.Com(Acctng) - I must admit that when you go into the Audio/Visual field, technology is ridiculously expensive. These are all areas open to start-up companies in the near-future.
What to expect in the future: In the near-future, I personally see Britannia staying away from the manufacturing of these items simply because they are not so incidental to the retailing industry, as to set the Company's development efforts in this area.
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Checkout Software, totaling $746
- OEM MS 64-bit VB: $204
- Microsoft Office 2007 SBE: $273
- Britannia Checkout System: $269 (this is the OEM price, the full price is $569)
- Internet domain/hosting, online platform
From the Chief Engineering Officer: Jerry K. Shum, B.Com(Acctng) - We have chosen the 64-bit version of Vista Business (which will have some sort of "upgrading" agreement when Windows 7 is released for a very low price), because of the graphics capabilities of the operating system, which very much seems to exceed that of the Mac OS X.
The Windows platform was preferred over the Macintosh platform because Windows:
- Mac lacks "Aero" features such as Windows+Tab application switching previews
- Mac lacks the Windows speed of application-switching, and general running speeds/responsiveness, which is critical indicator of reliability as a business application
- Mac's use of "command" (similar to the Windows Button) is awkward, such as Windows+C to copy, rather than Control+C; so there are notable differences which are not all that intuitive
- Mac is UNIX-based, which is what the "free" operating system Linux is run on - Mac is not as widely supported as Windows in the I.T. Technician marketplace, generally only preferred on the basis of Audio/ Video "production" software, such as Final Cut Pro, et cetera; as a result, it also lacks the ability to run Windows applications; and if Windows programs are run in VMware or Parallels for Mac, they are run in "virtual machine" mode, which means at a much slower speed
- Mac support for spinning screens, so they are displayed in "Portrait" mode are unknown
- Mac rendering of video, particularly support for AVCHD, seems less speedy as a Windows machine running the same specifications (we installed Windows through Boot Camp in a tryout).
- Windows is a standard business platform; and we didn't want to require ALL shops switch to Mac
- Windows is generally cheaper in price than Mac's "prestigious pricing" scam, we mean scheme...
Office 2007 SBE is a general essential for a small business, and Concierge could provide more information about the differences in applications. There may also be possibility for your Company to run Open Office (which is free), or Google Documents, but we do not support these applications "generally", and I.T. technicians may have difficulty navigating these programs too, since they are not widely supported by the business community. Nevertheless, business reports (accounting reports, journals, ledgers) are produced in Microsoft Office (*.doc, *.xls, *.ppt) or Adobe PDF (*.pdf) format.
As you can see, the BCS is priced at a low $269 (out-of-the-box, if you require customization, that will be charged on top at a rate which you can obtain from Concierge), which is very cheap compared to solutions like Intuit QuickBooks, MYOB, and Microsoft POS (which is what we call "generic solutions"). Our products are low-priced, because they were semi-University projects, which means that our Costs of Production (of what we call "Phase I: Software Development"), was very low. Furthermore, it is somewhat of a nifty "attempt" to grab market awareness in the industry, eventually for our "Phase II: Checkout Hardware Development", which will also be met by a "price competitive" business strategy.
What to expect in the near future: In the near future, we will continue updating our software as required.
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Retail business services
- Retail consulting
- Interior designer
- Marketing/online integration
- Transport/assembly/installation service
- Video production at $120/day for hire; and $40 an hour for camera man if required; models at $200 an hour
- Database management for $80 an hour
- Account management to simplify accounting with ease for $120 an hour for accounting service
- Online web store design for $80 an hour, website hosting and domain registration
- Software customization for $80 an hour
- Finding sponsorship for "Related Advertisements"
Please note that some of these services are outsourced to hand-picked consultants who we deem suitable to your needs.
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TOTAL AMOUNT DUE: $3,446.18 (excluding Phase II applications, and a PC shell)
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