Microsoft Corp has turned on a dime and has thrown its lot in with the UPOS Unified Point-of-Sale specification demanded by retailers. After initially turning its nose up at Sun Microsystems Inc’s JavaPOS specification (CI No 3,350) and then saying it didn’t understand the need for UPOS when OPOS already supported Java (CI No 3,504), Microsoft last week quietly put its name to UPOS. The specification is designed to enable the creation of POS peripheral devices that can be supported in JavaPOS or OPOS application environments. It was made public at the Riscon retail trade show in Denver last week. UPOS, developed by a committee including Microsoft, Sun, device manufacturers and retailers, will be administered by the Association for Retail Technology Standards. Microsoft said it did not support the release of JavaPOS last year because it segmented the industry standard and moved the industry backward toward proprietary systems. Microsoft wanted a universal standard from the beginning and supports the new UPOS specification because it will be beneficial to customers looking to implement POS solutions that are truly open and flexible. Furthermore it says this is a great example of the Sun versus Microsoft competition being less important than customer satisfaction.
