Channel Partner Helps Apple Push into PoS

Whether it’s at a concert venue or the Indianapolis Motor Speedway, there are a lot transactions being processed these days outside of traditional retail outlets. In fact, for that reason there is a lot usage of Square, a device that attaches to a smartphone or tablet to enable a remote credit card transaction.

But while that will meet the needs of smaller organizations, larger companies want to be able to deploy devices such as the Apple (AAPL) iPad to process transactions at events. To accommodate that need, Revel Systems has come up with a point-of-sale (PoS) system based on Apple tablet devices.

At its core, the Revel PoS device consists of a stand on which organizations can securely attach an Apple iPad to an Ethernet connection. As most everyone has discovered, Apple iPads don’t support Ethernet connections, so Revel Systems decided to build a hardened PoS stand that provided that connectivity, said company co-founder Chris Ciabarra. The company then became a partner with Apple and Intuit to link its systems to a back-end application running in the cloud that could process transactions.

Now Revel Systems is looking to partner with other solution providers that would be interested in reselling the company’s PoS system.

Ciabarra said the best part of using an Apple iPad as a PoS device is that most people know how to operate one, so rather than requiring somebody to literally man the cash register, many Revel Systems customers are the deploying the Apple iPad as a self-service PoS system to process transactions or be deployed short-term as what Ciabarra described as “a line buster.”

Naturally, the Revel PoS system supports services such as Apple Pay, but Ciabarra said solution providers can hook it up to almost any back-end transaction system they want without requiring customers to share transaction revenue with companies such as Square.

Solution providers that specialize in PoS systems have already taken note of the fact that these devices are showing up everywhere from retail outlets such as the Apple Store to restaurants where they serve as both the menu and PoS system. Just about all those devices are connected to a wireless network that, from a transaction perspective, can be spotty; especially compared to an Ethernet connection. The challenge and opportunity now is to find the venues where that Ethernet connection can have a meaningful difference in providing a better customer experience.