Article

Commentary: CETW and a rebuttal of sorts: Are kiosks relevant in mobile world?

Industry expert previews CETW and weighs in on the mobile vs. kiosk debate.

March 27, 2012

By Craig Keefner, channel managerof KIOSK Information Systems

First a little housekeeping - the Kiosk Industry Group will be at Customer Engagement Technology World this year walking the floor and awarding "Best of Show" awards for kiosks. A couple of us will be walking the show and will pool our experiences and select Best of Show for application, software, enclosure and all-around.

Our industry needs more recognition (and press) for well-designed, well-executed unattended self-service. With all the hype for tablets and "mobile whatever" too often we don't get the press we deserve.

Onto the rebuttal..

I was reading through the blogs and saw the blog by Michael Ionescu on kiosks' relevance in a world of "increasing dominance of mobile technology". It's a worthy subject and I thought he did a good job.

He writes:

"The answer is that while mobile phones have the capability to mimic the functionality of kiosks, consumers just don't use smartphones in that way."

Functionality is stretching it a bit. More accurate might be the user interface and delivery of information. I actually believe that the old paradigm of the enterprise/corporate driving the information products used by consumers (Word or Excel) that it's reversing and now the consumer interface is increasingly driving the enterprise, and the kiosk interface.

We used to do apps with Director, Flash or other frameworks. Now new app frameworks use HTML5 and web protocols. Our connections are so much better than in the old days of POTS.

In the self-service world we break the market into informational and transactional terminals. Informational terminals historically have been 15-inchtouchscreens often an all-in-one. Elotouch, NCR, IBM, and all the others.

It's hard to get 15- inch touchscreens anymore; they cost as much as 19-inch models, and most clients look to the larger 22-inch and larger touchscreens.

An iPhone has zero chance to deliver impact and user experience like that, or a tablet for that matter. Size matters.

Then you add in the transactional elements...

Information terminals can be likened to Android mobile phones. Millions of them and not a lot of profit. Transactional terminals are the iPads in that sense. They are very profitable and we grow/sustain our business.

Some examples of transactionals...

Prisons are a big market (we like to say captive) and visitors need to deposit cash, swipe their credit cards, authenticate themselves via the fingerprint reader and more.

Check in at clinic and you'll need to authenticate with some biometric, scan your medical card, swipe a credit card and get a receipt. And you need to be PCI and HIPPA compliant.

It's always possible to add devices as appendages/warts along with a nice tangle of USB cables and power cords, but that comes off as a mishmash.

Smartphones are cool no doubt. I have a Google Nexus with Google Wallet (which I have yet to use). I have a Consumer Reports app for scanning matrix bar codes in supermarkets and getting reviews. I never use it. Unfortunately, I also have email (which I tend to read all the time), or my Facebook, where I can argue politics with my brother.

And at KIOSK, we do bill pay stations for (hold the applause), mobile phones of all things. AT&T and Verizon. Am I luddite for wondering why a mobile smartphone users don't pay their bill with their mobile smartphones?

If you look at a smartphone as a "purpose built" appliance then for most people it's a texting/ Facebook thought communication device.

In one sense it is the dilemma the ATM industry has always faced -- how to be used for more than one transaction (ie financial). Kiosks were supposed to replace ATMs, too. Then ATMs were supposed to replace kiosks. It's also worth noting that NFC capability is still just a provisional knockout panel that might get used in 2014. VISA and Mastercard have a lot to do with that.

Meanwhile, we have the hype. We used to think BlackBerrys were the end of ends. Being an English major I read a lot, and I think back to the Capek brothers and their satire Pictures from the Insects' Life and the butterfly. It flits from one flower to the next. The hype on mobiles by the press characterized it perfectly.

Trivia note -- Star Trek trivia fans might also know that the original Android that was Rayna Kapec in the Requiem for Methelusah episode was named after Karel Capek. We had Androids in 1969.

In 1993, AT&T released the EOCommunicator. Essentially a touch 3G tablet. I actually helped publish a magazine on it. It was touted as the revolution back in 1993 and actually nicer than a Kindle [comparison]. Real life is always more complicated than the press would like to sell us on. We had to shut down the magazine.

"So the question becomes will smart phones ever completely make the kiosk obsolete [even] if it has the potential? Well the answer is maybe, but past consumer behavior seems to indicate that this probably won't happen."

Yes Michael. We agree...(and we can build kiosks for you :-)