|
|
NATIONAL RETAIL FEDERATION |
For Immediate Release
Contact: Scott Krugman/Ellen Tolley (202) 783-7971
Email: krugmans@nrf.com or tolleye@nrf.com
ARTS Releases UnifiedPOS 1.9
New York, NY, January 16, 2005--The Association for Retail Technology Standards (ARTS) is pleased to announce UnifiedPOS release 1.9 with enhanced functionality for several of the 24 devices supported by this standard for connecting peripheral devices to Point of Service terminals.
UnifiedPOS is a critical selection criterion in the purchasing of new Point of Services terminals. It protects the retailers' investment by separating the application from the hardware, thereby allowing retailers to change either hardware or software with significantly less programming expense. Surveys have shown that between 37 and 45 percent of retailers purchasing new point of sales terminals want to continue to use existing peripherals. Applications and hardware that conform to the UnifiedPOS specification permit this huge capital saving.
Release 1.9 includes a new API to support updating device firmware and enhancements to support Page Mode Printing, Credit Authorization Terminal (CAT) with electronic money, Check Scanner contrast adjustment, Scale "live weight," and updates to POSPower for battery-powered POS.
"These new features keep pace with the latest technology being used by retailers and ensures UnifiedPOS continues to satisfy international requirements," said Tadashi Furuhata of Seiko Epson who also represents the OPOS-J organization of more than 200 Japanese companies on the UnifiedPOS Technical Committee. "UnifiedPOS through cooperation with companies around the world saves all of us much time and cost in product development."
"IBM continues to invest in the leadership of the UnifiedPOS standard. We see UnifiedPOS as an important retail standard because it enables POS solutions to be open and flexible. UnifiedPOS helps to meet the retailers' need for a choice of solution providers for their point of sale applications and peripherals. We are delighted to have contributed to the development of version 1.9," said Kenneth Keating, Worldwide Director of Marketing for IBM's Retail Store Solutions.
ARTS wishes to thank the following companies who serve on the UnifiedPOS Technical Committee devoting many hours to maintain this 1,200 pages + API specification and provide products and services that utilize this standard: BearingPoint, IBM, Fujitsu Transaction Solutions, OPOS-J, Microsoft, NCR, Seiko Epson, Sun Microsystems, Transaction Printer Group, Ultimate Technology, and Wincor Nixdorf.
UnifiedPOS is vendor/language neutral and operating system independent. It is installed as OPOS on Windows, and JavaPOS on Windows, UNIX and Linux systems.
The Association for Retail Technology Standards (ARTS) is an international membership organization dedicated to reducing the costs of technology through standards. Since 1993, ARTS has been delivering application standards exclusively to the retail industry. ARTS has three standards: The Standard Relational Data Model, UnifiedPOS and IXRetail. Membership is open to all members of the international technology community- retailers from all industry segments, application developers and hardware companies. www.nrf-arts.org.
The National Retail Federation is the world's largest retail trade association, with membership that comprises all retail formats and channels of distribution including department, specialty, discount, catalog, Internet and independent stores as well as the industry's key trading partners of retail goods and services. NRF represents an industry with more than 1.4 million U.S. retail establishments, more than 23 million employees - about one in five American workers - and 2004 sales of $4.1 trillion. As the industry umbrella group, NRF also represents more than 100 state, national and international retail associations. www.nrf.com.
###
For more information on UnifiedPOS or to download a free copy of the standard, click here.