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Will bartenders hack your Point of Sale?
- jroes 16y agoPretty funny. Although I kinda hoped it was something else. Like a cool point of sale system that could be extended by its operators to provide fun new functionality with an intuitive graphical interface.
- cmeranda 16y agoI'll let you know when we write that post :)
- pbhjpbhj 16y agoI'd guess, as a co-owner of a shop myself, that the reason medium sized retailers spend a lot on POS is the same reason they don't represent themselves in court. It looks easy, you might get away with doing it cheaper, but there's a lot that can go wrong and a lot at stake if things don't pan out. Paying someone to pull you out of a hole is more expensive than paying someone else to dig it in the first place.
- ams6110 16y agoScale it up a bit, and it's the same reason a lot of enterprises buy Oracle (or other big expensive proprietary software) when OSS alternatives would be suitable.... they want someone to call (or worst case, blame) when problems arise.
- cmeranda 16y agoWhat about a freemium model where you could purchase optional support, like MySQL?
- tjmaxal 16y agoThe real problem here is that most restaurant owners are too ignorant to realize when they are getting fleeced by a POS seller.
- cmeranda 16y agoIt's a paradox: restaurant owners are often disdainful/fearful of technology, so they are the most easily swindled when it comes to understanding a value equation involving technology.
- Nwallins 16y agoThis article is well-meaning but totally misses the point: It doesn't matter if your POS is built on open source technology if someone has the ability to install new software onto it. i.e. UltraSecureAwesomeClosedSourceOS is just as vulnerable to having new (rogue) software installed onto the device as any other OS. The hardware or firmware should have controls in place to prevent this or make it extremely difficult, regardless of what is running on top.