Regal Entertainment Group adopts IBM and Linux for point-of-sale applicationRaleigh 25 September 2002 Regal Entertainment Group, operator of the United States' largest chain of movie theaters, has begun using new IBM point-of-sale systems and open-source Linux technology to serve millions of customers at its high-volume Regal Cinemas concession stands in one of the first and largest roll-outs of Linux in the retail point-of-sale environment. Regal is also testing a new, in-theater, Linux-based kiosk that will enable movie patrons to purchase tickets or retrieve tickets purchased from an on-line service.
Regal Cinemas is using rugged IBM SurePOS 500 point-of-sale systems at its concession stands, running Linux from Red Hat and linked with Regal's IBM eServer iSeries, a mainframe-class midrange server, at Regal's headquarters in Knoxville, Tennessee. An average of 13 SurePOS 500s will be used at each theater complex.
"We chose Linux because it is an open, affordable operating system, giving us lower cost and relative ease of programming with the Java2 projects we already had in place", stated Todd King, Vice President of Technical Information Services, Regal Entertainment Group. "We need a rugged, reliable technology solution for the time-sensitive, high-volume traffic in our concession stands, as well as a platform on which to build future applications, such as our ticket kiosk."
"The concession stand is a significant profit centre for a theater and is one of the most important and demanding areas of theater operations due to the need to provide service to a large number of customers in a very short time. They cannot afford downtime or rebooting when customers are in line for concessions and the movie is about to start", stated Tom Peterson, General Manager, IBM Retail Store Solutions. "The fact that Regal is using Linux in such a critically important way demonstrates that Linux running on retail-hardened IBM point-of-sale systems can be an attractive alternative for retailers."
The new networked IBM POS system, when linked with the in-store server and the IBM eServer iSeries at headquarters, greatly reduces the settlement time at each theater, and improves the accuracy of the sales and inventory data.
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