In-Store POS Software Delivery by Cloud Computing

 Everyone is trying to sell cloud computing as the greatest thing going.  ProphetLine was the first POS software company to deliver a pure internet POS/Store systems solution.  Several companies say they were the first, but we did it for Southwestern Bell in 1996.  ProphetLine set-up POS software to be delivered by the Internet for about 65 locations.  At that time band width was not available like today and Southwestern Bell put in T1 lines to all their stores.  We were at the beginning of the ASP consortium that was trying to have all applications reside on central servers and the Internet was the wide area network.  In theory this was an extremely efficient way to run your business and for some applications, it is still the best way.  POS software is a different animal and retailers want to have their applications and data reside at their location. 

 

I had already poured a large sum of money into developing this model and it was not returning a good investment, so we went to a near real-time communications model that moved all file changes at various times during the day.   Replication of file changes being sales numbers, inventory transfers and anything besides GL code.  So the next time you consider going to the cloud with your in-store systems, ask yourself if you want a company to have all your data and applications reside on their computers.