Dell Rolls On With New POS Product LineDell Rolls On With New POS Product Line

After a year of expansion into a number of new technologies, including handhelds, networking equipment, printers, and storage, Dell Computer is pressing ahead in 2003, too. It has introduced a point-of-sale line for retailers that includes PC-based registers, software, and peripherals and will cost about half as much as competing technology.

Dell's $1,700 retail package includes either an SX 260 or GX 260 Optiplex PC, an Epson receipt printer, Symbol Technologies bar-code scanner, Cherry keyboard and cash drawer from APG Cash Drawer. It's also selling cash-management, inventory-management, customer-loyalty, and other retail-industry software from Retek, AutoGas Systems, GERS Retail Systems, and MSS Global.

Once again, Dell's strategy is to compete on price with its more-established competitors, IBM in particular but also NCR and Wincor Nixdorf. Dell's move into the $4 billion retail technology hardware market was prompted by customers looking for a less-expensive alternative to IBM's dominant point-of-sale technology, which is used in about 75% of all retail environments, says Greg Buzek, president of IHL Consulting Group. A lot of point-of-sale success is determined by software, says Buzek, whose company helped Dell identify top retail-market software makers.

In September, Dell said it would team with Lexmark International Inc. to make and sell printers and supplies--a direct challenge to Hewlett-Packard. Earlier that same month, Dell managed to alienate Cisco Systems, another longtime partner, over Dell's presence in networking equipment. Cisco in October stopped selling its networking equipment through Dell. In the storage market, Dell is supplementing its current line of PowerVault storage systems by partnering with EMC Corp. to make and ship during the first quarter of 2003 an entry-level Fibre Channel storage device comparable to EMC's Clariion FC5300 System. Since November, Dell has officially been a player in handheld computers as well. Dell's Axim X5, using Microsoft's Pocket PC software, is scheduled to ship early this year.

Buzek likes the chances that newcomers Dell and HP, through its Compaq acquisition, have in the retail systems sector. "The point-of-sale stuff out there is just getting old," he says, adding that retailers typically spend 40% of their IT budgets on point-of-sale technology.