Building a POS solution - rp5700 POS

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Building a POS solution

Building a POS solution

The HP rp5700 Point of Sale System
The HP rp5700 point of sale system is a vital component of HP's retail POS solution. Its low purchase price reduces the overall cost of ownership and makes the transition from a PC to a POS solution more economical for your business. Like a PC, the HP rp5700 can run productivity applications, integrate with back office systems, power multimedia software, support browser based technology, and reduce long-term maintenance costs. This is where comparisons with PC technology stop. The HP rp5700 POS system can go beyond the typical PC lifespan to provide a five-year product lifecycle, support your choice of operating systems, and stand up to the stress of a retail environment.
Any retail environment can put great demands on a POS system. Your point of sale system must stand up to multiple users, long periods of continuous use, power surges, extremes of temperature, dust, and numerous peripheral components, and other retail store demands.

Chassis and fans
The HP rp5700 has a steel chassis, extra fans for internal cooling, and an oversized heat sink and power supply, making it ready out of the box for the rigors of a retail environment. Gold interior connectors minimize corrosion and encourage prolonged life for your input/output cables. The system also offers recessed, locking connectors for exterior cabling to avoid accidental unplugging — you won't lose valuable time processing credit cards because the system isn't connected. System Monitoring is also included; thermal alerts monitor temperature and shut down the system if necessary.

Ports and expansion slots
The HP rp5700 POS hardware includes two integrated Powered-Configurable powered serial ports (expandable to 4), four powered USB ports and six standard USB 2.0 ports, enabling you to connect to almost any POS peripheral. The rp5700 has two full-height PCI (Peripheral Component Interconnect) and one PCIe x1 for future expansion, as well as an ADD2 Slot for dual display connectivity. With these standard features, forward and backward compatibility are assured. Even wireless options are possible.

Memory, hard drives, and processor
The HP rp5700 is flexible enough to meet the needs of your small business now and the growth and expanded business you'll have in a few years. You can customize your POS hardware specific to your retail environment and your changing requirements:
•Go with the standard 512 MB (megabytes) of memory or upgrade to 4 GB (gigabytes)1.
•Choose up to 4 hard drives, each with 80, 160, 250 or 500 GB2.
•Select an Intel® Core™ 2 Duo3, Intel® Pentium® or Intel® Celeron® processor.

Peripherals
As described earlier in this Guide, HP offers POS hardware components to support your HP rp5700. You can add a touchscreen monitor, cash drawer, bar code scanner, thermal receipt printer, POS keyboard, or magnetic strip reader. You'll want all of these retail peripherals if you want to use the system's full capabilities. In addition, because the rp5700 is based on industry standard technology, you can also leverage a variety of non-HP branded POS peripherals.

Operating system and software
You have your choice of operating system with the HP rp5700 POS. You can select WEPOS (Windows Embedded for Point of Service), Microsoft Windows Vista, or FreeDOS.
In addition, the HP rp5700 is certified on Red Hat Linux and Novell SuSe.
HP offers Microsoft POS software preloaded on some models of the HP rp5700 POS system. Microsoft POS software is ideal for single-store retailers and first-time small business owners. If you're taking the plunge into the retail POS environment, the Microsoft POS software is easy to use and offers a quick start. You can track sales, inventory, and customer data. Real-time reports give you the information you need to make good business decisions.
If you need a complete POS solution supporting in-lane operations at the POS terminal, back office functions, and even administration from the head office, consider a higher-end package such as Microsoft Retail Management System software. This software extends the features provided by Microsoft POS software with more advanced reporting, employee tracking, and accounts receivable capabilities.

Warranty
A three-year warranty is standard with the HP rp5700 POS system. You'll get three years onsite, next business day service as well as three years parts and labor. Complimentary telephone support is included 24 x 7 for the entire warranty period. You'll also get a three-year warranty with any HP-branded POS peripherals when they are purchased with the HP rp5700 system. This means one contact for all your POS solution support needs.
The following table compares the HP rp5700 against other proprietary POS solutions as well as desktop computer POS solutions. The HP rp5700 bridges the divide between traditional, proprietary POS solutions and desktop PC POS offerings.
Feature Proprietary POS Desktop PS POS HP rp5700
Designed for tough retail environments X X
Supports long installations and deployments with a 5-year purchase lifecycle X X
Compatible with current and future powered retail peripherals X X
Embedded POS operating system to lock down POS device X X
Three-year standard warranty X X
Low purchase price X X
Runs productivity applications and serves as a manager's workstation X X
Easy integration with back office systems X X
Power to drive rich multimedia applications X X
Reduced long-term support and maintenance costs X X
Designed for new browser-based applications X X
Table 1: Comparison of features of the HP rp5700, other proprietary POS solutions, and desktop PC POS solutions
In many respects, the HP rp5700 combines the functionality of a POS solution with the stability of a PC. Traditional large-scale POS solutions often provide limited applications at significant cost with no ability to tailor the system to your company's specific needs.
Similarly, small businesses struggle with operations based solely on a PC. While the cost may be acceptable when acquiring a PC, the computer lacks true POS capabilities, limiting your ability to grow your business. With the HP rp5700, you get the features of a POS solution with full lifecycle cost of a PC.
Now that you understand POS systems and the POS hardware and software you get with an HP rp5700 setup in particular, determine if your business is ready for a state-of-the-art POS solution.
Next: Is my business ready for a POS solution? ›

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1.  Up to 1 GB may not be available with 32-bit operating systems due to system resource requirements.
2.  GB = 1 billion bytes. Actual formatted capacity is less. Up to 8GB (for XP and XP Pro) and up to 12GB (for Vista) of system disk is reserved for system recovery software.
3.  Dual Core is a new technology designed to improve performance of multithreaded software products and hardware-aware multitasking operating systems and may require appropriate operating system software for full benefit. Not all customers or software applications will necessarily benefit from use of this technology. 64-bit computing on Intel architecture requires a computer system with a processor, chipset, BIOS, operating system, device drivers and applications enabled for Intel® 64 architecture. Processors will not operate (including 32-bit operation) without an Intel 64 architecture-enabled BIOS. Performance will vary depending on your hardware and software configurations. See www.intel.com/info/em64t for more information.