The Green Sheet Online Edition
June 6, 2007 • 07:06:01
Forum
#h3 A bigger potato than he thought?
The options for credit card processing on the Macintosh are much broader than Ben Goretsky mentioned in your recent issue ["Apple is a small potato here," The Green Sheet, April 23, 2007, issue 07:04:02].
First, LightSpeed 2 from Xsilva Systems Inc. is a very strong POS application for the Mac. It integrates credit card processing and swiped transactions. LightSpeed has found applications in stores selling computer, furniture and clothing, and in many other fields, including spas.
LightSpeed supports single or multiple POS stations, inventory control, an integrated Web store and other features.
For application developers and larger stores, Monetra from Main Street Softworks Inc. provides a very strong networked payment processing infrastructure that handles processing via Internet protocol (IP), dial-up and leased line.
Monetra is certified with Globalpay, Nova Information Systems, Chase Paymentech Solutions, Heartland Payment Systems, FHMS, First Data Corp., etc., and soon should be certified for direct IP or dial up to American Express Co.
We run Monetra under Mac OS X on an Xserve, serving over 50 sales points in our store, but it [Monetra] also supports Linux, Windows and Unix.
We are currently implementing Ingenico multilane terminals with PIN debit and signature capture into our all-Macintosh POS environment, connecting to Monetra on the back-end.
There are a number of other stand-alone credit card processing applications for the Mac, including iAuthorize and AuthPay Express.
MYOB AccountEdge is a Macintosh single or multi-user accounting package, which also integrates card processing. And, of course, Macintosh users and developers can process through Chase iTerminal, Authorize.Net, VeriSign (now PayPal) and other Internet-based options.
The Macintosh ease of use, reliability, style and other factors are causing an explosion of use in homes, businesses and retail. We expect that options for credit card processing and POS on the Macintosh will continue to expand.
David Lerner, President
Tekserve Corp.
Following is a response from Ben Goretsky of USA ePay:
David,
I can understand where you are coming from, from a developer stance. But my point in the article was that even though solutions [for the Mac] may be available to the general merchant community, merchant banks and merchant agents (ISOs) have no clue about them.
I have no doubt that your Mac solution is wonderful and very easy to use. But when merchants who have Macs 1) are approached by merchant banks, or 2) go to merchant banks for Mac solutions, they are told none are available through them.
Furthermore, they are told to either get a PC or to find their own [Mac] solutions. Most likely the merchants are stuck getting a machine at that point.
I am also in charge of the development side of USA ePay, a gateway just like VeriSign and Authorize.Net.
As much as I would like to say that we have the same number of Mac developers as we do Windows or Linux developers, ... only 3% to 5% of all development and integration that has been done with us has been for Mac systems.
Thanks,
Ben Goretsky
USA ePay
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