Now Hawking iPads for POS, NCR Silver Mulls a Purpose-Built Tablet with its Own Stamp

NCR Corp.’s announcement this week that it has updated its iPad-based point-of-sale system, which it sells as NCR Silver, to support loyalty programs shone a spotlight on one of the few tablet POS products that comes from a major corporation in a market that has attracted a raft of startups.

The new app adds loyalty to features such as email marketing, customer history, and financial reporting. The update follows NCR’s agreement 10 months ago to provide the technology for Vantiv Mobile Checkout, an iPad POS product for Vantiv Inc.’s processing clients. Next up could be hardware, with NCR offering its own tablets or partnering with other manufacturers to provide the devices, Justin Hotard, general manager for NCR Silver, tells Digital Transactions News.

“More news to come [on that],” Hotard says. “Absolutely, we see a future where we’ll help provide a solution that’s more enterprise-grade either ourselves or through partners.”

The device, which will likely use Google Inc.’s Android operating system, will be future-proofed enough to let NCR approach with tablets the kind of replacement cycle it has established with traditional electronic cash registers, which tablets are meant to replace, Hotard says. This would address merchant frustration with iPads’ seemingly constant need for upgrades, he says. “There are some challenges with iOS devices at the point of sale,” he notes. “You’re tied into the upgrade cycle on iOS, and when running your store that can be a challenge. Every year there’s a new iPad, and every few years Apple stops supporting upgrades to older devices.”

By contrast, an NCR tablet will come closer to mimicking the permanence of the company’s ECRs, with which it made its name. “Our ECRs really limit the churn,” he adds. “You can keep it for seven to 10 years without upgrading. I think it’ll be analogous in the tablet world.” The device will also come with NCR’s seven-day-a-week tech support. “That’s fairly new in this market,” Hotard says.

It remains early days, however, for any NCR tablet. “It’s in serious thought and investigation,” says Hotard.

Through its own sales efforts and its linkup with Vantiv, NCR Silver has deployed just short of 10,000 tablets with merchants so far, less than two years after NCR launched the unit in June 2012. Deployments have been “pretty significant” since the deal with Vantiv kicked in, Hotard says.

The full kit includes a credit card reader, a cash drawer, a receipt printer, and a stand to prop up the iPad. All but the iPad comes from NCR. Merchants pay $59 per month for the first device, with each additional device carrying a fee of 10 cents per transaction up to a ceiling of $29 a month.

While the tablet POS market has attracted startups like Square Inc., ShopKeep POS, Revel Systems Inc., Leaf Holdings Inc., and Clover Network Inc. (which is part of First Data Corp.), Hotard argues a shakeout is inevitable. “There will be a small number of players garnering the lion’s share of the market,” he says. “What’s great is that there’s a lot of innovation going on.”

The high population of small merchants, however, ensures it will be some time before the shakeout sets in. “With 8 million small merchants, a lot of us have a lot of room for growth,” Hotard notes.

How well NCR Silver ultimately fares with its own tablet will depend on software, says George Peabody, a senior analyst at Glenbrook Partners, a Menlo Park, Calif.-based payments consultancy. “Going forward, we’ll expect [POS] tablets to do more than take payments,” he says. “How market-specific is the software [going to be]?”

Also, NCR along with its competitors will have to contend with the arrival of the Europay-MasterCard-Visa (EMV) chip card. Hotard says NCR will be ready, though he is loath to give details. “We’ve got some things in the hopper that we’ll talk about as they come out,” he says. “We’ll provide solutions and options for [EMV].”