n the intensely competitive race for retail ATM locations, most manufacturers and a growing number of deployers believe that more horsepower might be what they need to keep them in the running.

The manufacturers that traditionally serve the retail market-including Triton, Tidel and Tranax-have all introduced PC-based ATMs in the past year, a departure from the embedded systems that have been the mainstay of their businesses.

Other manufacturers whose primary clientele is financial institutions-most notably Wincor Nixdorf-have won some fans with lower-priced hardware geared to retail deployments.

While financial institutions have deployed ATMs with PC-based platforms for years, they've been ignored by independents because of their higher price tags. As the price of processors, memory and other PC features continues to come down, however, more independents are willing to consider them.

Investing in the Future

The move is largely driven by a desire to position retail ATM owners to add more functionality to their machines if and when new applications such as money order sales, check cashing and money transfer catch on with ATM users.

Proprietary embedded systems baffle all but ATM insiders, said Matt Johnson, Tidel's Executive Vice President of Marketing. "Our engineers have been using them for years, but there is a steep learning curve. We want to make the transition of working with a company like ours a lot easier for software developers and the people who build peripherals."

"The biggest value for developers is the ability to add new capabilities," said Bill Jackson, Triton's Chief Technical Officer. "With (Triton's) RL5000 platform, we can do in a week what it would take us a month to do on the 9600/9700 platform."

"We've never been able to do anything with the embedded systems from these guys before because their whole world was so closed," said Steve Hensley, Vice President of Marketing for software developer KAL. "But now that's all changing." Hensley said PC-based platforms are opening up new market segments to retail oriented manufacturers, including financial institutions that are re-evaluating their equipment needs as they prepare for Triple DES upgrades. They also provide an entry into international markets like Europe, where PC platforms are more common in retail deployments.

Prompted by an interest in advanced functionality, the Bailey Group began deploying Wincor Nixdorf's ProCash Compact ATMs in 1998, said Beth Bailey Alexander, the Texas-based ISO's President. "We wanted to put ourselves in a position to bring in something new without incurring huge costs when we were ready to do so."

Three-quarters of her company's 750 machines, mostly placements, are now PC-based, Bailey said.

Like Alexander, Haze Lancaster, a founding partner of ATM USA, said his company is trying to gain future flexibility by deploying PC-based machines. He believes more independents will do so as prices for PC-based models continue to fall.

"The cost will come down. We've seen it with every other type of product the ATM vendors have come out with. The processors, memory and other things they're using now are all going to be less expensive next year," Lancaster said.

Win, Placements, Show

About half of Lancaster's 1,100 machines are placements, owned by his North Carolina-based company rather than by merchants. He intends to migrate most of them to PC-based platforms in the next 18 months. Placements are where PC-based ATMs will show up first, he believes.

"Right now, we're paying more attention than the merchants to these higher-priced products," he said. "We're laying the groundwork for what's going to come three to five years from now."

E*Trade Access has already migrated the "vast majority" of the 3,000 ATMs it owns to a PC-based platform, said Dale Dentlinger, the company's Director. In one of its highest-profile placements, E*Trade has 1,200 Wincor Nixdorf ProCash Compacts at Target stores across the United States.

In contrast, "fewer than 5%" of its 11,000 merchant-owned machines are PC-based, Dentlinger said.

In higher-volume locations, a PC platform is "not a separate decision, but part of an overall package" that also includes features like multiple cash cassettes and high performance dispensers, he said. "Those are the types of things we're looking for when we buy a placement ATM and put it out there."

Lancaster said larger ISOs won't balk at paying $500 to $1,000 more per unit, the difference in wholesale price between higher-end embedded machines such as Tidel's 3400 and Triton's 9700 and entry-level PC-based machines.

Placements are generally in locations with higher transaction volumes, which lend themselves more readily to PC-based features like larger color screens, Lancaster said.

Equipment can be pulled and relocated more easily than a merchant-owned machine, an advantage when testing any kind of new product. An ATM specialist rather than a merchant or other party with little, if any, training typically services the machine.

More for the Money

Dentlinger predicts that PC-based machines will also become the norm at merchant-owned retail sites that generate 500 or more transactions a month because merchants can get attractive features like a larger screen for a price not much more than a higher-end embedded ATM.

ATM owners can definitely get more for their money today, agreed Jeremy Inman, Vice President of Operations for Aptus Financial.

"Four years ago, they were paying $8,000 retail for a (Triton) 9600. Now they can get an RL5000 for a few thousand less than that," Inman said.

"But how do you get somebody to invest in a new piece of equipment if their machine has paid for itself and is still working fine? That's where we hope the new transactions may come in."

He said big-box retailers are beginning to show interest, based on the more attractive screen graphics afforded by a PC-based platform. "They want that added clarity and color definition when they put their logos out there."

Aptus has deployed about a dozen Triton RL5000s and has a commitment for a placement deal with about 20 more PC-based machines, Inman said. That's a tiny percentage of its 1,170-machine fleet, but he expects the number to grow. "We will push it. We're excited about it."

Managing Costs

Alexander said service calls have decreased and uptime has increased at the Bailey Group since the company began deploying PC-based products.

"There are a lot of things we're handling now through terminal support rather than dispatching technicians," she said. "We can't load paper or cash remotely, but we can clear a paper jam."

Saul Caprio, Wincor Nixdorf's Director of U.S. Business Development, said Wincor's ProView intelligent monitoring and management software can handle about 30% of the service incidents that would normally require a dispatch, mostly first-line issues such as jams.

"So if you are an ISO, the ATMs are out of service for minutes instead of hours. That translates into fewer lost transactions and more revenue," he said.

Techs working in the field won't need a degree in computer science, said Eric Sternberg, Tranax's Vice President of Marketing. "A lot of it will still involve swapping out a board, the same as today."

New services can also be downloaded to PC-based machines rather than sending out a tech to manually load software, Caprio said. And PC-based platforms in theory mean greater choice for ATM owners.

"If you stick with firmware-based ATMs, you must use the provider that the manufacturer has cut a deal with-but that may not be the best deal for the ISO. With Windows-based ATMs and a little programming, there is more choice," he said.

Another benefit is the ability to back up files and store more transaction records, a growing concern as ATM skimming incidents increase, said Eric Park, Chief Operating Officer of NexTran, which sells the ComNet line of PC-based machines.

"On a non-PC machine, you can store 2,000 transactions for 180 days. On our cheapest machine (ComNet 2000), you can store up to 200,000 transactions," Park said.

At last November's Retail Delivery Conference, NexTran demonstrated an application in which digital photographs of ATM users could be included in the machine's electronic journal.

Ultimately, said Brian Kett, Triton's President, it comes down to offering more choices for both distributors and deployers.

"It's like an automobile. You can get everything you need in an Echo (Toyota's new economy sedan). But not everyone is going to buy an Echo," Kett said.

What's Important

• ATM manufacturers whose mainstay business has been embedded systems have introduced PC-based ATMs
• Some retail deployers are interested in the increased flexibility offered by these machines, particularly for placements
• Some ISOs report they've gained operational efficiencies with PC-based ATMs

PC Primer

Tidel: The 3800, a reworked version of the company's earlier Chameleon that runs Windows NT. Optional sidecar can support scanners, bill validators and other peripherals.

Coming soon: the 3700, a through-the-wall version of the 3800, and the 3600, a PC-based machine that runs Windows CE.

Triton: The RL5000, a walk-up machine based on an Intel Xscale platform that runs Windows CE. The FT5000, a through-the-wall version of the same machine.

Tranax: The MiniBank 2500, a walk-up that runs Windows XP embedded. The MiniBank 5000, a side-access, drive-up version of the same platform. The embedded MiniBank 2150 can be upgraded to a MiniBank 2500 with the addition of a new monitor and XP operating system.

NexTran: The ComNet series. Depending on the model, the machines run Windows CE, Windows 2000 or Windows XP.

Wincor Nixdorf: ProCash 1500xe. Wincor's entry-level ATM runs Windows XP.

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