Hello Everyone,
I'm the maintainer of the POS at OpenERP and
I would like to discuss with you the future of the POS module, explain what
is our point of view, our priorities, but also gather feedback from you, and
have a nice discussion on this subject :)
First, as many of you have noticed, we have launched a campaign on
Indiegogo to fund a cleanup & evolution of the hardware part of the POS,
and I invite you to check it out:
http://www.indiegogo.com/projects/opensource-your-shop
As this campaign is already successful we'd like to extend the goals, we'll
start with electronic scales, but maybe there are other priorities ? But first
Id'like to explain the goal of this campaign in more details:
Our point of view on the hardware:
============================
There are two side on the hardware: The platform (where the POS Client runs)
and the peripherals.
For the platform we are seeing a big shift in demand from the PC/Industrial
touchscreens to tablets (iPad,Android), and making sure the POS runs perfectly
on those platforms is our first priority.
And for us platform support means:
- having the POS working on the platform's web browser with peripheral support
- having at least a receipt printer and barcode scanner working out of the box
- having the same level of peripheral support on all platforms
- having the same peripherals work on all platforms, so we can build a small list
of perfectly supported hardware. (no usb for pc / bluetooth for tablets)
- having the same 'driver' repository and install system for all platforms (no
custom
iPad app, with custom iPad drivers)
- having it all work very simply, with only trivial levels of configuration
needed.
- everything must be open source
- providing ways for the community and partners to easily extend the system
and add support for their own devices
By these standards, the current proxy system doesn't even support a single
platform.
It's to solve all these issues that we came up with the PosBox concept. With the
posbox, all the drivers are OpenERP python modules that run on a linux platform
embedded in a raspberry-pi. The POS then connects itself to the PosBox to
control the peripherals.
This has the following advantages :
- The same system, with the same peripherals works whatever the platform the POS
is run on.
- It re-uses much of the proxy system we had in place before, it is likely
that the
majority of the driver code can be ported to the PosBox with little modification
- It makes use of OpenERP to manage the drivers delivery and installation,
something we're all familiar with.
- Even if it is hardware based, it can reduce the total cost of an installation
- The configuration is much easier as the linux on the PosBox is already
configured
with the correct device access rights, etc.
- The raspberry-pi provides USB, but also HDMI and video-out for very cheap and
easy secondary displays. Non-USB peripherals can be connected via USB adapters.
- If you run your POS on a full PC and don't want to use the posbox, you can
run a local
openerp install with the posbox module installed and I expect that most
drivers will work.
So I think that the posbox is a very good base for the future of the POS as
far as
peripheral support is concerned. There is also the possibility to use the same
system
for other modules than the POS altough I am less familiar with their
requirements.
Electronic Scales, Secondary Displays & Other peripherals
==============================================
With the campaign's current target we will provide receipt printer(ESC/POS) &
barcode
scanner support in standard. But we want to extend that range in the future;
next target
is electronic scales, that we'll develop it as part of this campaign if it
reaches 30K.
As for other peripherals I guess it depends on what the community is
interested in and
what it can contribute ?
Electronic Payments Systems
========================
The problem with electronic payment system is that there is too much country
specific concerns
for us to handle and we're not sure that a generic implementation is of any use.
Has anyone experience implementing electronic payment systems or a working
implementation to contribute ?
Software evolution
===============
From our point of view, concerning software, the role of OpenERP S.A. is to
make sure the POS is
stable, extensible, integrated with the rest of OpenERP and has the generic
features that benefit mostly
everyone. Custom features that fit specific buisnesses needs are best made by
partners & community :)
So our next big change, as part of the indiegogo campaign, is to make it run
on android & iOS,
and that should happen quite shortly. Our primary goal is to make it work in
the browser, but we'll probably
provide native apps, and maybe native apps for Windows/Linux/OSX as well, to
ease certification process,
But there are other things on our radar, namely:
- customer management : fidelity cards / points / discounts / etc. this seems
to be one of the
most often requested features. This could be part of an extention of this
indiegogo campaign, or maybe somebody
has already something that works ?
- Bars & Restaurants: Table managment, Backend orders, etc. It seems like a
big project and we'd
like to concentrate on the shop part first, but I'd still like to hear if
any of you has experience
on the subject, any development to contribute, etc. ?
Community
=========
The POS Centralisation projects seems like a nice initiative, that I'll follow
with interest :)
- Fred.
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