The End of PoS As We Know It

I have just been to the Apple Store with my daughter as she wanted to replace her broken smartphone. Can you guess what the person working there used to take a picture of the damage, bring up my customer data, take the credit card payment, and send the invoice to me by e-mail? He didn't use a camera, or a pen, or a traditional cash register, or a printer. That's right. He did it all on an iPad.

US retailer Urban Outfitters announced late last year that it had ordered its last ever cash register. The clothing chain declared it would start equipping sales staff with iPads instead. Many other retailers have also announced plans to phase out cash registers, including JCPenney, Aeropostale, Sam’s Club and Nordstrom. Others are likely to follow. Retailers have good reasons to eliminate cash registers says Gary Lombardo, Head of Marketing at Demandware. In fact, he believes that, at the current pace, mobile devices could replace cash registers in just a few years. Is this the end of PoS as we know it?

The Beginning of the End

Point-of-Sale (also known as 'Point of Service' or just ‘POS’) devices such as touch-screen displays, barcode scanners, receipts printers, scales and pole displays are slowly being forced out of the retail environment by the wide presence and capabilities of smartphones and tablets. The rise of online and mobile commerce has led retailers and POS technology providers to rethink how to best serve consumers.

Integration is one avenue. Due the potentially advantageous ROI and the worldwide exposure mobile platforms can provide, US developer and distributor POSmatic has come up with Onsight Point of Sale Software. Onsight offer SMEs a one-stop integrated solution to processing secure payments from “electronic signature capture pads, debit and credit card payments, web-enabled platforms, and smart interfaces.” Accepting mobile payments is rising in importance with retailers feeling the pinch of recession or simple loss of walk-in customers into their physical stores.

Apple devices are another option. Urban Outfitter’s CIO, Calvin Hollinger, said during a webcastpresentation in September 2012, that “iPads cost about 1/5th as much as a cash register, and can be used for so much.” Additional benefits of using iPads for retail transactions, according to Business Insider, include customer interaction, as they can enter their name, address and even telephone number and e-mail address easily and comfortably on an iPad. What’s more, “an iPad on a swivel that’s not in use can quickly be taken off, with that space being used for packing or more merchandise or anything else” says the article’s author Joe Weisenthal.

Dynamic Payment Processing

Mobile Strategy Partner’s David Eads argues new problems associated with managing multichannel shopping and measuring performance can be solved using mobile devices. Rather than upgrade POS equipment to serve mobile payments and NFC technology, Eads says smartphones and tablets offer a more dynamic way of handling all types of payment and monitoring sales across a range of channels.

IT company (and POS developer) Oracle’s David Dorf was (understandably) cautious about calling time on the point of sale as we know it. In a blog post from last year, Dorf wrote that, “in some situations, for some retailers there might be an opportunity to ditch the traditional POS, but for the majority of retailers that’s just not practical. Self-checkout is a great addition to POS and so is mobile checkout,” he argues. “But they add capabilities to POS, not replace it. Centralized architectures, even those based in the cloud, are quite viable as long as there’s resiliency in the registers.”

Whether PoS is enhanced by mobile devices such as smartophones and tablets, or replaced altogether, what is sure is that our shopping experience is set to change forever with the advent of mobile commerce.

Do you agree with that vision? Share your thoughts below.

Posted by Herwig Stockl on 19 Apr, 2013

Source : Ericsson

The Spectacular Booms of the Silicon Valley Dream

• By Sara Breselor and Victoria Tang
• April 16, 2013 | 
• 6:30 am | 
• Categories:Wired

IT’S THE GOLDEN FRONTIER of the American dream, where the Next Big Thing is anyone’s game and where there is, in fact, such a thing as a free lunch (or at least a massive valuation). Despite its past spectacular failures, the Valley has continued to birth the greatest businesses of the digital age while somehow building on its astonishing economic impact—this boomtown refuses to bust.
Illustration: Eric Fischer

1993 2003 2011

Les meilleures villes du monde pour les start-up

Un rapport du réseau Startup Genome, réalisé en collaboration avec des chercheurs de l'université Stanford et de l'université de Californie à Berkeley, évalue et classe les villes offrant les meilleurs «écosystèmes à start-up» au monde.
L'étude tire ses information d'un outil interactif en ligne, «Startup Compass», qui rassemble des données comparatives provenant de plus de 50 000 entrepreneurs et start-up à travers le monde, ainsi que de différentes sources externes. Il note et classe les écosystèmes à start-up des villes de classe mondiale en fonction des indicateurs suivants:

• Production de start-up: situation de l'entrepreneuriat et niveau de maturité des start-up dans la région.
• Financement: disponibilité et importance du capital-risque pour les start-up.
• Performance: performance et potentiel de performance des start-up.
• Esprit d'entreprise: niveau de vision et de résilience des créateurs d'entreprise.
• Innovation: rapidité d'adoption de technologies, modes de gestion et modèles commerciaux nouveaux.
• Appui: qualité du réseau d'accompagnement (y compris parrainage, fournisseurs de services et types de financement disponibles).
• Talent: principales caractéristiques des créateurs.

Sans surprise, c'est la Silicon Valley qui arrive en tête de liste, suivie de Tel-Aviv, seule ville non américaine du top 5. Seules quatre villes européennes figurent dans le top 20: Londres (7ème), Paris (11ème), Moscou (14ème) et Berlin (15ème). Le rapport identifie également 20 villes «de second rang», dont neuf sont européennes. Par ordre alphabétique: Amsterdam, Barcelone, Copenhague, Dublin, Helsinki, Madrid, Milan, Varsovie et Zurich. (Avec The Atlantic Cities)

Obtenir le rapport.

Obama opposes Silicon Valley firms on immigration reform

White House announcement before congressional vote on STEM Jobs Act puts president in opposition to many of the Silicon Valley firms and executives who bankrolled his re-election campaign.

An immigration reform plan backed by Silicon Valley firms is one bill President Obama doesn't want to sign.

(Credit: White House) 

 

President Obama opposes an immigration reform bill backed by companies including Apple, Microsoft, and Adobe that would let U.S.-educated computer programmers and engineers remain in the country, the White House said today.
The surprise announcement comes in advance of a House of Representatives vote scheduled for Friday on the Republican-backed STEM Jobs Act of 2012, which would make up to 55,000 visas available to foreigners who earned a master's or doctoral degree in certain science or technology area from a U.S. university. Those visas would only be available if immigration authorities certify that no American workers are available to fill the post.
The White House's statement this afternoon (PDF) says the "administration opposes House passage of H.R. 6429."
It's a move sure to disappoint the legions of companies and business groups -- the list also includes Cisco, IBM, Hewlett-Packard, Oracle, Qualcomm, the U.S. Chamber of Commerce, IEEE-USA -- that sent a joint letter to House members in September pleading with them to approve the bill.
While the Obama administration's warning didn't include an explicit veto threat, it also didn't take that possibility off the table, and it means the legislation will likely die in the Democrat-controlled Senate even if it clears the House.
Tech companies had hoped that the STEM Jobs Act could emerge as a rare bipartisan point of accord during an otherwise hotly contested election year. AOL co-founder Steve Case, now a venture capitalist, told CNET this month that:

My view is if there is a way to come together around broader immigration reform quickly, that would be great. But if that doesn't happen, then we shouldn't delay the issue because every year -- and again it will happen in May and June next year -- 40,000 to 50,000 people will be graduating with Ph.D.s and masters' degrees, and half or so will end up having to leave. Some of those people will go back to their countries and start companies that could end up being the next Googles or Facebooks.

The White House's announcement said the administration doesn't necessarily oppose the concepts behind the bill, but the STEM Jobs Act is a "narrowly tailored proposal" that does not "meet the president's long-term objectives with respect to comprehensive immigration reform." One reason it's controversial among Democrats is that the bill would eliminate the 55,000 diversity visas available to citizens of countries with low immigration rates to the United States.
This week's vote is all-but-certain to forward the STEM Act to the Senate. House Democrats defeated a prior vote on the bill in September, but that was under rules requiring a two-thirds supermajority. If the vote counts remain approximately the same, under this Friday's simple majority rule, the measure will clear the House.
Silicon Valley firms haven't had much luck persuading Washington officialdom to budge on immigration reform. As CNET reported this month, a related bill, Startup Act 2.0, that would authorize 75,000 "entrepreneur visas" has languished in House and Senate committees for half a year without a single hearing.
Legal immigrants founded or co-founded innumerable technology companies including Google, Yahoo, Intel, eBay, and Sun. A Kauffman Foundation study by Vivek Wadhwa found that 52 percent of Silicon Valley startups were "immigrant-founded."

Source: CNET; by Declan McCullagh

Les pôles d'innovation se multiplient en dehors de la Silicon Valley

Si la Silicon Valley est depuis des années le poumon de l'innovation dans le monde, d'autres écosystèmes de startups, nouveaux ou déjà plus matures, la rattrapent. L'entreprenariat est en plein essor, et entraîne l'apparition et le développement d'écosystèmes locaux, dynamiques et compétitifs.

Si la Silicon Valley a longtemps été le principal lieu de création de startups, il semblerait que cette tendance touche à sa fin : ces dernières années ont vu une « explosion » d’entrepreneurs et avec, « l’émergence de nouveaux écosystèmes de startups dans le monde » explique le Startup Genome dans un rapport intitulé Startup Ecosystem Report 2012. L’étude, basée sur des données collectées auprès de plus de 50.000 startups, présente un classement des 20 écosystèmes les plus dynamiques du monde. 7 indicateurs sont utilisés pour les évaluer: l’indice de production (quantifie l'activité des startups), les opportunités de financement, la performance des startups, l'état d'esprit, la caractère disruptif des écosystèmes, l’aide aux startups (mentors, network) et le nombre de talents qualifiés.

Des écosystèmes prometteurs ou déjà matures
Parmi les 6 premiers écosystèmes de startups de l’index Global, 5 sont nord américains : la Silicon Valley arrive en tête, suivie de Tel Aviv, Los Angeles, Seattle, New York et Boston. Toronto et Vancouver arrivent en 8è et 9è position du classement. Pour l’Europe, c’est Londres qui est en tête (7è position au classement général) suivie par Paris (11è) Mouscou (14è) et Berlin (15è). Sao Paulo est le premier écosystème d’Amérique Latine (13 au classement général), avec Santiago (20è). Waterloo, Singapour, Melbourne et Bangalore arrivent en 16è, 17è, 18è et 19è positions. De grandes disparités distinguent ces écosystèmes les uns des autres, et en font des environnements variés. D’après le rapport, les villes qui se distinguent le plus de la Silicon Valley ont les meilleures chances de succès, puisqu’elles seront en mesure de faire de leurs spécificités un avantage compétitif.

De fortes disparités les distinguent
Boston, Tel Aviv et Vancouver ressemblent fortement à la Silicon Valley. Toutes présentent, globalement, des indices de production, de financement et de talents élevés. Par opposition, Moscou, Sao Paulo et Sydney sont les écosystèmes les plus éloignés de la Silicon Valley, et ont tendance à avoir des indices de performance, de production et de financement relativement faibles. Toronto, Chicago et Paris sont des environnements qui offrent un soutien de qualité aux startups, qui présentent un fort indice de performance, et des indices de production et de talents moyens. En revanche, ce sont des écosystèmes relativement peu innovants ou disruptifs. Syndney, Melbourne et Los Angeles forment le top 3 des écosystèmes les plus disruptifs, tandis que Vancouver, Londres, Santiago et Sao Paulo ont le meilleur état d’esprit.

Source : L'atelier