Industry News – October 2009

30th October 2009

Police use of mobile devices has increased

“The government has pumped £80m into mobile devices for police forces, and officers can expect an increasing proportion of their workload to be dependent on them. There is a raft of problems for police forces to iron out, but the clear benefits and relatively low cost mean it is one initiative that is not likely to disappear.” Read the full story

Andrea says: Police Forces across many different countries are now using mobile technology. The applications and benefits are vast. Mobile technology reduces the time an officer will spend in the station on time-consuming tasks such as data entry and instead spend valuable time on community based activities. Police have access to up-to-date information and intelligence – with instant background checks and sex offender tracking capabilities which increase police officer and community safety. The technology can also reduce the need for officers to use their radios, freeing up call handling staff to concentrate more on communication with the public. Security is of course paramount, and it is vital that the infrastructure is completely secure when using mobile technology for data transfer.

Growth of POS terminal market

“Payment card authorization terminal shipments jumped almost 9 percent last year, to 13.9 million units from 12.8 million in 2007, according to new figures compiled by The Nilson Report.” Read the full story

Andrea says: It’s really not surprising that payment card terminal sales have grown so much. The growth is partly related to equipment renewals, which have been reported as being as much as 20% per year, and of course, EMV migration over the past few years. The market growth will continue to depend upon development in each country and commitment to EMV.

The rise (and history) of the barcode

“Barcodes have a quiet ubiquity. They have proliferated to the point where few of us even notice them. A US invention, they finally made their way to the UK in the late 1970s and in October 1979 a momentous event happened at a branch of Key Markets in Spalding, Lincolnshire. The barcode arrived at the till.” Read the full story

Andrea says: Maxatec became involved in bar code printing back in 1994. The products we distributed were from a US manufacturer and getting the products ‘Europeanised’ was an experience. Simple and basic requirements such as the ability to print an EAN bar code were just not there. Our products have come a long way since then, and the applications for bar codes are quite diverse covering markets such as healthcare, warehousing, security, identification and many more. It is worrying though, that there are still retailers (relatively large as well!) who stick a price tag over the bar code and then manually run the product through a cash register as a ‘sundry item’. So we still have some way to go before we completely obliterate the 1970’s individual price stickers.

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