Retail, Grocery, And Hospitality IT News For VARs — November 17, 2014
By Phillip Britt, contributing writer
In the news, POS malware attacks continue to evolve. Also in the news, near-field communication (NFC) is expected to grow at a high rate, and the pros and cons of mobile wallets are examined. In other news, Revell raises series C financing and plans expansion.
Beware Of POS Malware
POS malware is continuing to evolve, according to Dark Reading. The breaches at Target and Home Depot were due to targeted attacks, the report says, while other breaches have been due to more general attacks. Many of the attacks are based on malware that takes multiple approaches to get at critical data, including hiding the malicious code in a fake binary file in the system root. Even though the attacks are becoming more sophisticated, the attacks often have their roots in relatively old malware.
Explosive NFC Growth Expected
GrandView Research expects NFC deployments to grow rapidly between now and the year 2020, with mobile payment the dominant market sector. NFC provides mobile payment providers and users with as improved financial transparency, improved public sector servicing, and reduced carbon footprint, according to the research company. Increased use of smartphones for payments and other purposes is expected to drive NFC growth in North America, thanks to the support of the technology from mobile network operators and financial institutions. The Asia Pacific region is expected to follow in North America’s footsteps in the adoption of NFC solutions in retail and in transportation, the report adds.
Mobile Wallet Pros, Cons Examined
In an analysis of mobile wallet options, CBS News looks at some of the pros and cons of the various offerings. The analysis says that NFC and bar code payments each have some issues from the way they require the users to hold his or her smartphone. ApplePay, while it has received most of the recent press, still requires the latest version of the phone to use and some cards cannot be linked to it. Google Wallet, despite debuting three years earlier, is still accepted by only a small minority of merchants. SoftCard also has limited usage, and tends to work best with a prepaid account.
Revell Raises Funds, Plans Expansion
Techcrunch reports that Revell, a provider of iPad POS platforms, recently raised $100 million in Series C financing and is likely to seek an initial public offering in 2015. The company is seeking to grow rapidly from its current 10,000 deployed terminals and 200 employees. The company was the first iPad POS maker to support Apple Pay and is expected to expand its product development efforts with the new funds.
Retail IT Talking Points
Whole Foods CIO Jason Buechel tells CIO Journal that the grocery store chain is benefitting from Instacart and ApplePay. Instacart has delivered digital shopping carts 2.5 times the size of their physical counterparts, primarily due to the time customers save by ordering online rather than travelling to, then walking through the aisles at the physical store. Instacart promises delivery within an hour of ordering. Whole Foods was one of the first companies to start using ApplePay and processed 150,000 transactions the first month.
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