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POS Software Maintenance Disconnect: Retailers To Pay A Lot More Than They Expect

Written by Evan Schuman
January 28th, 2010
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Although it’s hardly a stunning revelation that retail IT will be spending more on POS software maintenance this year than they expect, it’s unusual for a research report to quantify it precisely. A new report from the IHL Group and RISNews, however, tries to do just that.

Beyond showing a modest IT spending increase at both the store and enterprise level, the report found a “disconnect between what retailers are claiming they are paying today for software maintenance” and what the vendors they are considering for their next POS are actually charging, said IHL President Greg Buzek. “So those people considering buying Oracle for POS their next time, they are currently only paying 10.1 percent of license fees towards maintenance. If they actually buy Oracle, they will be adding an additional 11.9 percent to their annual software maintenance cost for POS. If they move to accounting/finance/HR, it would be an 8.4 percent increase. And if it’s Oracle merchandising and supply chain applications, it would be 8.6 percent more than what they pay today with their current vendor.” The vendors examined were Microsoft, SAP, Oracle, JDA, Micros, IBM, NCR, Retalix, Epicor and Fujitsu.


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