| SUBJECT | Proprietary ECR/ePos | PC/PoS |
| QUALITY RESPONSIBILITY |
Maker takes full responsibility for their products in quality and functionality, because they produce both hardware and software by themselves.
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Basically, it is very hard to say which party should take the responsibility, because its hardware and software are usually produced separately by different makers(hardware maker and software house/system integrator). This makes the issue, which is very simple for proprietary ECR/PoS, very difficult for PC PoS.
In addition to hardware & software, it is necessary to maintain the OS as well.
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| HARDWARE LIFE |
Quite long, because makers design their own hardware very appropriately, according to their purposes and products' functionality.
Long hardware life. |
PC based PoS systems are subject to slight and big changes, because of the nature of PC field, which is constantly changing and developing at very rapid pace.
This makes hardware maintenance very difficult.
Short Lived.
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| PRICE & MARGIN |
Reasonable good profitable margin for distributors/dealers.
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Very narrow margin because the most PC PoS Board makers are selling their products to anybody at very low price. Majority of software houses are also selling with little margin less than overhead.
Much more, you have to be always attentive to rapid change of market trend of PC PoS, which is changing at rapid speed all the time.
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| EXCLUSIVITY |
Yes, you are protected territorial wise.
We work on 'only one distributor in one country.', except for a few special cases.
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Anybody can purchase the exactly identical, same hardware. The market is not protected and it is quite open to anybody. That is why price competition is very keen!
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| DATA PROTECTION |
Very secure. All the input data is stored permanently in static RAM memory, not D-RAM.
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Not so protected when Power failure or when there are frequent damages on hard disk and when terminals are blocked because of operation system.
Memory is kept in FDD, HDD or other PC type media.
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| OPERATION OF TERMINALS |
Very Easy ! That is why they can be used and preferred even by the aged people.
1. Just Switch-on, then you can operate ECR immediately.
2. Quick in operation speed.
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For people unfamiliar with computer, it is troublesome and difficult !
1. Even after power on it takes some time to wait prior to operate.
2. Operation speed is slow.
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| HIGH SKILLED/QUALIFIED ENGINEER |
Not required. Many repairmen have been used to repair cash registers from mechanical parts to electronic circuits for a long period of time.
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Required, especially for system installation, which is very complicated for people in general ! You can hardly repair PC-board by yourself.
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| MODIFICATION REQUESTS (SPECIALLY SOFTWARE APPLICATION) |
Not required, once installed terminal(s) as people consider ROM based software unchangeable.
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Very often required and it is not so easy to ask shop owner to pay for modification changes. So, at the end, all profits you made in first installation would be lost. This is why so many PC PoS distributors come back to promote sales of the Proprietary ECR/PoS later, again.
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