Microsoft, Sun, IBM, And HP Make Retail MovesMicrosoft, Sun, IBM, And HP Make Retail Moves

The IT side of retailing held center stage Monday as companies ranging from Microsoft and IBM to Sun and HP laid out plans and products at the National Retailer Federation's trade show in New York.

Microsoft led by unveiling what it calls its Smarter Retailing Initiative, a technology framework based on .Net technology and XML that it says will make it easier for companies to connect their legacy applications in the retail arena with their stores--and through Web services, their customers.

Microsoft said the initiative will focus on three key areas: shopping, selling, and operations. Microsoft hopes to make it easier for retailers to offer personalized shopping experiences to customers via devices such as cell phones, bring customer relationship management tools down to the level of the individual sales clerk, and jump-start wireless and RFID adoption in retail.

Although the initiative relies on some proprietary technology, Microsoft said that the new strategy will also take into account retail-specific industry standards, such as IX Retail, OPOS, and UCCNet.

Nearly two dozen companies joined Microsoft at the show to unveil support for the Smarter Retailing Initiative with new or revamped products. Among them, Accenture rolled out a series of RFID-based tools that take advantage of other Microsoft software to boost retail management and let customers sidestep checkout lines.

Accenture's Store Manager Workbench leverages Microsoft Office and SharePoint Portal Server 2003 to put employee schedules, store inventory, and sales data onto a Tablet PC or PDA so that store managers can stay atop developments when they're on the floor. Another tool, called Shopping Cart Assistant, will let customers scan and pay for items as they're picked off the shelf. It relies on a Tablet PC using Windows XP Embedded, a version of the operating system that Microsoft's pushing at the retail IT market in a host of devices, including point-of-sale systems.

IBM matched Microsoft's retail initative with one of its own, dubbed IBM Store Integration Framework. Composed of a Java 2- and Web services-based architecture, various WebSphere components, including WebSphere Application Server, IBM's DB2 database, and its Tivoli-branded systems management software, and retail-specific extensions to WebSphere, IBM's strategy is to give retailers open-standard tools that they can use to develop and deploy applications for such chores as linking point-of-sale systems to wireless Tablet PCs and PDAs, then connecting the point-of-sale devices to the rest of the store's IT infrastructure. Other goals include allowing retailers to link into multiple channels, including Web sites, physical stores, call centers, and kiosks for a more integrated approach to selling, and the management of inventory and business operation.

Sun concentrated on RFID technologies. It said Sunday that that it would open a RFID testing facility in Dallas to help companies reach compliance with Wal-Mart's tagging requirement, which the retailer wants to put into place within the next 12 months. The 17,000-square-foot Dallas warehouse will be equipped with conveyor stations, dock door stations, and forklift portals so that suppliers can test their implementations of RFID and gain Wal-Mart's seal of approval. A second RFID warehouse will open within a month in Scotland, said Sun, so that European suppliers can test their solutions without having to travel to Texas.

On Monday, Hewlett-Packard launched a migration service designed for retailers who want to leave behind proprietary point-of-sale systems for HP's open-standard rp5000. The rp5000 platform, which takes advantage of Microsoft's .Net and Windows XP Embedded technologies, let retailers replace older point-of-sale systems with ones that can link to legacy applications through tools and software that vendors will produce as part of Microsoft's Smarter Retailing Initiative. Retailers can purchase the migration service direct from HP or through any of its authorized channel partners.

Also at the trade show, Dell and Intuit announced a pair of hardware-software bundles for retailers that combine Dell's OptiPlex PC and Intuit's QuickBooks Point of Sale software with a full set of retail gear, including receipt printer, bar-code scanner, credit-card reader, and cash drawer. Pricing for the bundles start at $3,739.