The Traditional POS Industry Is Dead As New Retail Tech Opportunities Grow

By Joe Finizio, Principal Consultant, Northlake Associates

A few years ago, WIRED magazine’s cover pronounced that the web is dead. The story went on to say that the world wide web that we had known for the past two decades was being replaced by more efficient cloud-based mobile applications, eliminating the need for a browser to sit between software applications and users of those services and content being delivered over the internet. Over the past several months, many of my conversations with long-time POS industry colleagues have ended with the comment “It’s not the POS industry we grew up in,” and they are correct. If you step back and look at the transition and consolidation that have taken place, it’s becoming very difficult to recognize POS as a stand-alone industry.