Beetle drive hits Siemens' limits

Siemens Nixdorf has unveiled the latest version of its PC-based point of sale (pos) hardware, but has ruled out selling the kit through its PC distributors and resellers.

The company's retail sales business sells to multinational stores and supermarkets direct and through Vars.

It hopes that more corner shops and independent retailers will buy its latest Beetle machines, which are based on the 486DX66.

Roger Bower, general manager at Siemens Nixdorf's retail line of business, said the company sells roughly 50 per cent of its pos kit through its 12-strong reseller channel.

'We want to sell to a wider variety of retailers through our partners, as we are up against firms such as ICL, IBM, Olivetti and NCR,' said Bower.

'With Beetle, we are exploiting our PC development and our partnership with Microsoft for retail pos systems.'

The new Beetle/20 terminal is priced at u1,700 and will run Dos, Windows NT and Unix operating systems.