This is more of a rant than anything.
NCR POS software is dead.
The only merchants that choose NCR POS anymore are international brands that need the language and tax logic that NCR built, along with their international support footprint.
That moat is disappearing as cloud companies move internationally and replicate the features and networks that NCR once prided itself on.
Probably 5-10 years until NCR loses every possible POS opportunity.
Despite all these challenges, NCR still feels justified in charging insane integration fees.
Or maybe it’s because of these challenges that NCR is desperate for money.
Hard to say.
But it’s absurd.
Here’s how this works.
A third party solution needs to extract data (or push data) into NCR’s POS. Let’s just say it’s Aloha.
NCR has absolutely terrible control over their shitty old software, so they don’t want third parties integrating to Aloha directly and reading the grind files. These are daily flat files that are crunched at end of day (it’s that old, really).
NCR instead wants third parties writing to their Cloud Connect interface.
Let’s assume for a second that Cloud Connect even works as intended (though many third parties will tell you it doesn’t, cuz NCR).
If you use Cloud Connect there’s a chance the NCR merchant has to pay to turn it on… we haven’t heard a consistent soundbite here.
Then once it is turned on, the third party gets the privilege of paying NCR to use Cloud Connect.
This tax can be non-trivial; for enterprise merchants it can amount to 50% of the third party’s fee.
Imagine that for a second: you’re a 1,000 location brand expecting to pay $300 per store per year for a solution. Then NCR comes in and tell the third party that NCR is owed $150 per store per year.
What?
You think software margins are that high in the restaurant space?
Restaurants pay nothing for solutions (except payments, where there’s no ceiling apparently), take forever to make buying decisions, and then demand 24/7 uptime and support.
… it’s almost as if you could explain why there are only three software providers that serve the $1T US restaurant industry that earn enough money to be public…
If you were looking for behavior that proves why NCR is circling the toilet, here it is.
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