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The buzz about appliances

December 2, 2004

What does a kiosk have in common with a TiVo digital recorder? What about with a Netgear router? For many kiosk deployments, perhaps not much. And maybe that's a big mistake.

Today, digital recorders and routers are implemented using mostly common computer technology in terms of processors, memory, media and more. They may have custom board layouts but, for all intents and purposes, they are just as much a computer as a kiosk is. So what makes your kiosk different from a computer?

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For one thing, kiosk operating systems have been stripped to have only the features needed to perform a limited set of functions. And the software, operating system and application have been burned to solid-state memory. Further, the application and the operating system have been crafted so closely together that they appear as one.

Webster defines an appliance as an instrument or device designed for a particular use. So, kiosks are appliances by definition. But one generally associates a high degree of ease of installation, ease of use and higher reliability with appliances than one does with the typical kiosk.

The kiosk industry may soon discover that the ideal platform may be a number of kiosk appliances, perhaps the "information kiosk appliance" or the "transaction kiosk appliance." These will be devices you can take out of a box and, with a few simple steps, be off and running, and not have to worry about it again for a long time.

To some extent this sort of reliable plug-and-play is already around. In Minnesota, Grand Casinos is using appliance technology to replace a problematic kiosk deployment based on the traditional PC model. The same goes for the Henry Company, which, after experimenting with other kiosk technology, has just rolled out more than 500 kiosk appliances to Home Depot stores.

TiVo wouldn't have solved the problem for Grand Casinos or the Henry Company, but in the early days of kiosks, many tried to use the contemporary equivalent - VCRs and optical disk players - as kiosk information appliances, only to discover that those devices weren't up to the duty cycle of a kiosk. Nowadays folks desiring a shortcut to a kiosk appliance are more apt to try a thin client computer than a VCR, or even TiVo. But while thin clients may provide the building blocks of a kiosk appliance, that's not what they were designed for.

When done correctly, a kiosk appliance can make a huge impact. According to Todd Hanlon, kiosk project director at Grand Casinos, "Over half a million swipes and our promotional kiosks are still going strong. Our guests think they're fast and easy to use. Marketing likes them because they're consistent, flexible and detailed. IS (information systems) says they're so stable they forgot about them."

When the IT staff can forget about the kiosks, you have achieved a true appliance solution.