IT Professionals

Windows In At Sears

Posted by on Feb 3, 2009 | 4 Comments

I ended up at Sears today (time for new glasses). And while we were not there long as I had a lot of work to get done at home already, I noticed something interesting. Windows PCs, likely running Win2k or older, tossing up errors on a regular basis.

Now being nosy, I inquired as if whether this was a recent issue of something that has been taking place for some time now. Apparently, this has been ongoing for some time. Whatever the issue is with this specific program running on this older release of Windows, it is clearly not being corrected.

As we were leaving the store, I noticed that other terminals from other departments were suffering from what appeared to be a similarly worded error yet clearly using different POS software. This was getting interesting as the employees appeared to simply move on to an other terminal when the error would occur.

So what does all of this lead up to? Assuming Sears is able to weather the financial turmoil of late, I believe it might have a compelling reason to either revisit its POS software or, better, give Windows 7 a try. Despite being a Linux guy myself, I do understand that legacy software can end up being a pretty compelling reason to use a specific platform. The question is, will Sears consider upgrading to different POS software for retail and eyeware departments or instead, just bite the bullet and upgrade the platform itself? Definitely something I would love to see happen to help with the obvious frustration of its employees, that’s for sure.

  • John Edwards

    Sears is probably just like every other company, trying to save money wherever they can. I am a network admin for an un-named large entity. I still have to support some Windows 98 machines. There is no way corporations are going to move to MAC or Linux. One is too expensive and the other’s learning curve is too great.

  • http://www.matthartley.com Matt Hartley

    I agree that Sears is trying to save money. Clearly, a lot of companies are these days.

    And yeah, for some IT personnel, retraining is not likely either for other platforms. Their loss in the long run, but that is another topic I suppose.

    I am seeing the trend here locally where the smart money is on Linux training, along with staying current with the latest Windows technologies. I firmly believe both are equally important as to provide customized solutions, not limitations on one’s own lack of training. We are entering a time of solutions, not platforms. Sometimes that means solution A, sometimes solution B.

    This being said, Red Hat and Novell have had some successes integrating Linux into Windows environments. Obviously legacy software is king for most enterprise situations (retail is a great example), hence the lack of desire to jumping platforms 100%. But to say that there is a learning curved with something heavily managed is not entirely true. It depends on how you stack the deck.

    My thinking is…

    “Linux thin client+Windows server=common mixed environment solution”

    To the end user, it “is” Windows and applications. Yet the Windows functions are not scattered all over. And to an even greater Linux degree, I would point out that many of the POS systems you see in use these days are NOT Windows.

    One totally off the wall of an example of Linux hiding in plain site is with the local casinos on the nearby reservations are using Linux powered slot machines. How would I know? I was at the casino a year back when they did a scheduled check on the machines, rebooted them and there was tux, with the kernel info booting up. And let me say, penny slots is pretty user friendly. :)

  • Kevin

    From what I’ve seen, some POS systems will be running windows, though you cannot tell from looking at the screen. All you see is the full screen text and/or graphics interface.

    Never saw a sign of the OS back when I worked at Sears 10 years ago, back then it was a small monochrome(white on black) screen you saw.

    At my current retail work, before they added internet use to the same POS computers, all you saw was the POS application.

    If any kind of repeating errors come up, we would open a ticket with system support, they would troubleshoot it and possibly have us reimage or replace the hardware if that’s what’s needed.
    It’s entirely possible that employees will not bother to try to solve it, leaving a problem for a while, but we do have a way of fixing most problems. The systems run XP embedded, and have a lot of functions locked down to try to stop employees from screwing things up.

    It’s also possible that at some retailers, there is not a good system support in place, or the individual store or department would be charged for the call and replacement hardware. I have to think it’s something like that at stores like walmart, where apparently problems like debit pads not working don’t get fixed for extended times.

    Where I work, we get hardware swaps shipped out to the store by fedex next day shipping. The nonfunctional stuff goes back fedex ground. Of course the company has an exclusive contract with fedex, getting reduced rates, and it’s enough shipping that a UPS center closed when the fedex contract started.

  • http://www.matthartley.com Matt Hartley

    Kevin: Interesting insight, thanks for highlighting how all of that works.