OVERVIEW

TCOnow! for Retail Store Solutions

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What will this tool help me decide?
Whether Windows or Linux Point of Sale is Better For You

TCOnow! for Retail Store Solutions is a software tool that helps you decide whether you should use Windows or Linux for your Point of Sale needs. By answering a limited number of questions, TCOnow! will generate a Total Cost of Ownership (TCO) comparison of Windows and Linux PoS systems. You can compare IRES Linux or Microsoft's XPe/WePOS running on IBM SurePOS client systems and Dell, HP ProLiant or IBM xSeries servers.

Point of Sale technology requires a substantial commitment, and it directly affects your ability to serve customers. This increases the importance of decisions on high availability, heterogeneous failover, and patch management. In this industry, the goal is to deliver new services at a lower cost, but a traditional financial analysis has a hard time accommodating a 10-year technology cycle. Once these issues are combined with the need to keep IT overhead per store as low as possible, it is clear that a custom-made assessment is necessary. CIOview’s software takes all of this into consideration and generates a full technical and financial business report for your needs. If you are trying to determine your optimal PoS system, then this is the product for you!

Click any option, in the matrix below, to see what you can compare.

Interview Process:		Choose which systems you would like to compare - you can look at Linux and Windows XPe or Windows Embedded for Point of Sale. Then select from a variety of retail segments (see the default store configurations, employee salaries, non-wage benefits, cost of capital, etc). Design a server and register configuration for 1 to 3 different store setups (for example mall locations, boutiques, and superstores). You will also be able to select from three high availability strategies, including clustering.

Results:		Once you have completed the interview process, our software will combine your responses with our industry information to create a full business case. This will include performance, pricing, and downtime data on dozens of servers, POS registers, and software products. It will also allow you to see the impact of your current IT skill set on the cost of moving to Windows or Linux.

A Step Further:		Once you have reviewed your analysis, you will be able to go back in and change any of your decisions, or the underlying assumptions. This allows you to continue to modify your analysis until you have reached a conclusion. For example, you can see how industry warranty and support terms will affect your ongoing costs. It will also allow you to weight the importance of operational costs such as people, facilities, and downtime compared to your initial purchase.

Customized Business Report

CIOview's software creates a complete business case, detailing the costs of possible solutions. For the financial people, it includes cost factor breakdown. For the technical people, it includes a complete break-down of deployment.

With a tool this powerful, you can give everyone the information they want…and look great doing it.

Purchasing Research - Done!

Conducting the research necessary to make a purchasing decision can be very time consuming. The process of reading through reviews, listening to the experience of colleagues, and trying to sift through the marketing materials can make it difficult to reach a clear decision. CIOview's software takes all of the pertinent industry information into account and applies it to your specific situation – giving you the most accurate analysis possible.

Learn more about research methodology


	Extensive What if Analysis After you have reviewed your cost comparison, the software allows you to drill-down and change any of the underlying assumptions. The software is intelligent enough to allow you to change everything from the server model selected, to the cost of the power for the servers. This means you can continue to modify your report until you reach the completed solution you desire.

Respected Independent Third Party

You can be assured that as a third party provider, we provide you with only objective information. This independence is recognized by some of the top names in the IT field through the use of our products and strategic partners with associations such as ISECOM and AIIM.

Learn more about strategic partners

Side-by-Side Comparison

By answering as few as 20 questions, you will be able to compare your costs side-by-side for:

Servers and POS registers
Migration services
Software
Storage
Downtime
Facilities
Windows and Linux training
Ongoing personnel costs

CIOview Corp. • 30 Nagog Park • Acton • MA 01720 • P (+1) 978.929.2960 • F (+1) 978.929.2969