Microsoft Dynamics POS 2009: Available for Retailers Today

REDMOND, Wash. — Aug. 3, 2009 — Microsoft Corp. today announced the availability of Microsoft Dynamics POS 2009, a flexible, scalable solution that helps midmarket companies and specialty retailers provide outstanding customer service, drive employee productivity and make business decisions with confidence. The new solution builds on Microsoft’s promise of the Dynamic Business — a vision for helping companies realize their full potential through the strategic use of flexible business applications that remain relevant as their business needs evolve.

“We know retailers need to be responsive in order to keep customers happy and keep them coming back into their stores,” said Michael Griffiths, group product manager, Microsoft Dynamics Retail Solutions. “Microsoft Dynamics POS 2009 is easy to use and provides powerful data so retailers can spend more time with their customers and less time and money worrying about training employees or managing their technology.”

Microsoft Dynamics POS 2009 features an intuitive and highly customizable user interface that gives all employees, from the storefront to the back office, access to critical information such as inventory levels and purchase history. The interface is optimized for touch screens and can be tailored for specific roles or individuals, increasing productivity and reducing costs associated with training times. In addition, retailers have the ability to create custom buttons for completing common tasks, adding efficiency to each transaction.

The solution includes a range of new features — which help retailers make informed decisions, respond quickly to their customers’ needs and drive down costs — including these:

• Smart search. Enables employees or managers to bring up relevant information in the solution quickly, helping to drive fast employee response times and a better customer experience

• Security-enhanced payment processing. Helps protect cardholder information and minimize fraud with support for the Payment Card Industry (PCI) Security Standards Council industry standards and guidelines

• Software development kit (SDK). Enables partners to develop add-on solutions with their own retail industry solutions such as multichannel, mobility and more

• Real-time inventory management and flexible reporting tools. Integration with Microsoft SQL Services and Microsoft Office, providing business insight that helps retailers make more informed decisions

• “Microsoft Dynamics POS 2009 has opened up a world of possibilities for us and really helps my employees take our customer service up another notch,” said Dave Figueroa, owner of Scraps Dog Bakery. “Now when a customer comes in and doesn’t remember which biscuit Fido likes best, one of our sales associates can pull up the customer’s purchase history in just a few seconds.”

Microsoft Dynamics POS 2009 is easy to deploy and manage, and reduces customers’ total cost of ownership by working easily with other Microsoft technologies. The out-of-the-box alignment makes tasks easier and faster for retailers by eliminating the need to enter redundant data into disparate systems, and the familiar look and feel of the solution helps employees get up and running quickly. In addition, Microsoft Dynamics POS 2009 provides a great opportunity for partners to develop add-on solutions that work with enterprise resource planning (ERP) products from both Microsoft and third-party providers.

Microsoft Dynamics POS 2009 is currently available in English in Australia, Canada, New Zealand, the United Kingdom and the United States. More information about Microsoft Dynamics POS 2009 can be found at http://www.microsoft.com/dynamics/pos.