Notes and News from the final day at NRF

My last day at NRF started out with a pretty benign agenda. First I would hit Brickstream (provider of a retail CRM system), then I had appointments with Microsoft and Intel. Then there was time for tooling around the big boys like NCR, IBM and Wincor Nixdorf.

Craig Keefner, Publisher, Kiosks.org Association

Brickstream was in booth 114, back against the wall in the smaller exhibition area. I wasn't even quite sure how I had selected them for a visit. It turns out they have some exceptional software for tracking and analyzing customer movements in a store. How many people are in line, what path did they take? How many stop at the display and how long do they stand there? Where do they go from there? How quickly are my employees serving customers? Brickstream's patented system provides the answers.

How does it work? Using cameras, the system converts AVI files in XYT (XY Time) and turns movements into database records. A drugstore, for example, might do 65 percent of its revenue in prescriptions. What else do those customers buy? What merchandise do they pass picking up their prescriptions?

This analysis can be valuable in prototyping and/or testing customer and employee responses. For a typical convenience store, the cost could be between $5,000 and $15,000. Travel Centers of America is using Brickstream software to measure pump conversion and other metrics at its truck stops.

Small world, and neat stuff.

Next up was Dell, and much to everybody's surprise there was a pedestal kiosk in the center of the booth along with a brochure on Dell's new "Kiosk Service Solutions." The brochure proclaims, "From product conceptualization through deployment and field support and strategic counseling services, Dell -- along with its partners -- brings together all the necessary skills and capabilities to deliver a total solution to customers."

The picture on the front is a rendering of a kiosk from Factura, which is a Dell partner, along with FivePoint.

The people at Dell were very hospitable. I was sitting at a table with five people and it is clear that they are very serious about customer and employee self-service terminals. I am in the process of getting a more in-depth interview with them on this new division.

At 2 p.m. I re-entered the Intel area. The "viewing area" was private, and only with an Intel escort could you get in. The entire area was a joint effort by a new retail solutions group, which is comprised of Intel, Cisco Systems, and Cap Gemini Ernst & Young.

Paul Buckley of Intel was there with his boss, Michael Millsap. Of course, I was interested in the EZ-Shop demo with its graphics. It runs at 120 frames per second, with a 1600 x 1200 resolution. It will be launched formally on a 3Ghz Intel processor. The video is a 128Mbyte nVidia Geoforce. In the future, do not be surprised to see this level of video performance built right into the Intel motherboard in an Intel graphics video controller. The performance is like having an Xbox jacked up 20X on steroids.

Intel incorporates a bill dispenser by Fujitsu or NCR, and a bill acceptor by MEI. The demo is for burger, fries and cokes. It accepts credit cards (cashless), has a loyalty system and supports cash back. It's very clean, compact and very effective. It would be a heckuva lot of fun to just drive the thing. I probably should've asked them how they plan to set play thresholds. The fact that you might have set thresholds like that tells you something.

The striking technical component is that the graphics and menu are all generated via a rules-driven database. Dependent items (Would you like cheese or double cheese on that burger?), time of day, and date are all built in. Menus, in the conventional sense are eliminated, as this becomes a Personal Order System.

A trial is underway in the San Diego Sports Arena. Several top QSRs (quick service restaurants) are preparing trials, including McDonald's.

It really is quite stunning visually. The station has attractors (three long LCD panels on the wall), and provides a synchronized themed environment with incredible opportunity for additional revenue.

At the Microsoft booth I heard about the new RMS program, which was intriguing. RMS stands for Retail Management System (for some of us it is an electronic measurement for voltage, root mean square). The program is aimed squarely at smaller retailers.

A very nice ROI calculator is used to calculate the cost savings, which is the object of the program. No IT staff is required, for example. The interesting part is the partnership Microsoft brings to the table with CitiBank in the form of credit processing transaction fees. With a normal 2.5 percent fee, users of Microsoft RMS can work with Citibank gets a small retailer a 1.69 percent rate. On business of $80,000/month with half of those transactions as credit, a savings of $380/month, or $4,500 annually, is possible. Those relationships are bringing very tangible benefits.

In more news/stops:

I visited with Karie Lester in the Lexmark booth. The laser printer manufacturer is redefining the boundaries of self-service forms terminals for corporate environments. For the first time, I saw Lexmark's new iStation, the self-service photo order station. Very cool!

Symbol Technologies announced three new major products, and the MK2000 was the highlight for me. A small, very interactive terminal designed for retail aisles, it is the coolest "kiosk" I saw. The new CB2000 Client Bridge, which connects Ethernet-enabled devices to 802.11b or other Wi-Fi certified wireless LAN, was announced. Symbol also displayed the new omnidirectional projection scanner, called the LS 9208. This scanner is an extremely powerful addition to Symbol's scanner family.

In the NCR booth the RealPOS 80 POS Terminal was displayed.  This unit is a testament to great engineering as it is totally "tool free" for maintenance. Engineering-wise, this unit was the top winner in my book.

Wincor Nixdorf had the demo of demos with its POS terminal connected to a multitude of displays, printers and more and as part of the demo.

It was a great show and I am so glad that I had the opportunity to attend!