Customer Solution Case Study
/ / Virgin Megastores Opens Music and Video Vault to Customers withNew Digital Kiosk
Windows Embedded for Point of Service
Overview
Country or Region:United States
Industry:Retail
Customer Profile
Virgin Megastores USA, based in Los Angeles, is an entertainment specialty retailer of music, movies, books, games, fashion, electronics, and more.
Business Situation
Virgin needed toreplace in-store CD listening posts with digital media previewkiosks that offerversatile and reliable platforms for future expansion.
Solution
Microsoft®Windows® Embedded for Point of Servicedelivers out-of-the-box functionality, centralized management, and a common look-and-feel across point-of-service and back-office applications.
Benefits
Software driver support and Plugand Play technology for easy integration of peripheral devices.
Proactive systemalerts and accurate reporting saves IT resources.
Operating systemlock-down capability helps ensure security of devices. / “Because we have tons of experience with Microsoft applications and platforms, with Windows Embedded for Point of Service,we hit the ground running and had no development issuesat all.”
Robert Fort, Director of Information Technology, Virgin Entertainment Group,North America
Since its inception, Virgin Megastores has been viewed on both sides of the Atlantic Oceanas an innovative organization. To maintain that reputation at its Virgin Megastores in the United States, Virgin wanted to replace CD listening posts with digital media preview kiosks capable of delivering far more than just music. Seeking to lower lifecycle costs for the device, Virgin selectedMicrosoft®Windows® Embedded for Point of Service, a retail-optimized operating system designed for easy setup, use, and service. The result is the Virgin Vault, a highly extensible digital music listening station that also allows customers to watch videoclips and preview games.
Situation
In 2005, the executives at Virgin Megastores USA recognized that a new generation of listeners raised on digital music downloads would no longer be satisfied by in-store listening stationslimited to a single CD.
The CD listening stations, which were considered highly innovative when first introduced in the early 1990s, now seemed cumbersome and costly in terms of labor. Store personnel had to manually change the CDs every week, and customers often had to line up to listen to a particulartrack, while nearby posts with less popular music stood empty.
“Our group CEOresolved to deploy digital kiosks,” says Robert Fort, Director of Information Technology, Virgin Entertainment Group, North America. “We wanted a versatile platform capable of handling many different kinds of media files,along with the ability to connect with point-of-serviceequipment like scanners and printers. Of course, my CEO had an additional mandate for me—to control development and support costs. So the device had to be easy to set up, use, and service, as well as be cost effective.”
Fort quickly found a hardware platform for the new digital music listening station. “In the spring of 2005, we signed a contract with IBM to deploy more than 200IBMAnyplace Kiosks, with the assumption that we would usea Windows®operating system.”
The requirement for Microsoft®Windows was based on the goal of keeping costs low by employing in-house resources. “We’re aMicrosoft products shop,” declares Fort, referring to the IT department he runs. Among the Microsoft products currently used by Virgin in the back-office arethe Microsoft SQL Server™ database, Microsoft ExchangeServer messaging and collaboration server, Microsoft Office, and Microsoft Windows XP Professional. “We believe in integrated IT systems and Microsoft makes that easy, so incorporating a new kiosk was no exception.”
But he admits to having doubts in the back of his mind. “I was concerned Windows XP had too many features we didn’t need and too large a footprint.And I wasn’t sure if Windows XP Embedded would havetheretail-specific capabilities we needed such as Plug and Play[technology] with currentpoint-of-serviceequipment.”
Solution
In May 2005, Fort attended the industry tradeshow where Microsoft launched Microsoft Windows Embedded for Point of Service. “I sat there in the audience and realized that this was the answer we were looking for. Windows Embedded for Point of Servicehad the retail-optimized functionality we needed, but in a low-cost, modular operating systemwith a small footprint. I immediately ran down to the IBM booth, found the Anyplace Kiosk product manager, and told her that we absolutely had to use this new operating system.”
Development of the digital listening station began immediately, with IBM handling the integration of Windows Embedded for Point of Service with the Anyplace Kiosk hardware. Virgin’s in-house development team worked on revamping it’s previouscustomer-facing application, Virgin MegaPlay—now dubbed Virgin Vault—using familiar Microsoft Windows–based development tools, including the Microsoft Visual Studio® .NET 2003, Visual C++®, and Visual Basic® development systems.
By August 2005—just three months after Fort first learned about Windows Embedded for Point of Service—Virgin was successfully deploying more than 200 of the new Virgin Vault digital listening stations in its two flagship locations,Times Square, New York, and Hollywood, California.
“Installation was a breeze, and we had the machines at both locations up and running in just a few days. The entire development project—including Windows Embedded for Point of Servicesystem integration and user application development—was completed on time and within budget,” reports Fort.
Benefits
Virgin received a number of benefits by working with Windows Embedded for Point of Service.
“Because we have tons of experience with Microsoft applications and platforms, with Windows Embedded for Point of Service,we hit the ground running and had no development issues at all,” comments Fort.
Windows Embedded for Point of Service also delivered a centralized management system that helps save money by enabling the IT department to remotely monitor, fix, and upgrade existingperipheral devices—or add new ones. The common look and feel across Microsoft operating systemsand applications means that both IT managers and store personnel can get up to speed quickly on the new kiosks.
Built-in Functionality
Microsoft products for point of service offer a significant amount of functionalitybuilt right in them—including Plug and Play technology, support for peripheral software drivers, security, Web browser, and media player support.
“Windows Embedded for Point of Serviceis just perfect, because it enablesus to include only what we needed, thus givingus the ability to keep the total footprint below 700 megabytes while at the same time reducing licensing fees,”observes Fort.
Windows Embedded for Point of Service and the built-in Microsoft Internet Explorer browser and Windows Media® Playerall arecritical to the operation of the Virgin Vault, which enables customers to listen to 30-second music samples, watch DVDclips, and preview video game screens.
Using the Anyplace kiosk’s integrated scanner, customers scan the barcode on any CD, DVD, or game cartridge. Or they can use the kiosk’s touch-screen to browse product recommendation screens or search for any title in the library. Once a title is scanned or selected, the Virgin Vault application makes a request to a Web server in Los Angeles running Internet Information Services, which hosts over two terabytes of music samples.
“We cache the most frequently requested samples in-store to ensure fast response times—generally less than one second,” explains Fort. “If our in-house serversdon’t have a track, the [Microsoft] .NET Framework application fetches it from online music and video sample services throughInternet Explorer.”
According to Fort, Windows Embedded for Point of Serviceensures thereliability of the entire process.“Tight integrationwith Windows Embedded for Point of Servicereally enables smooth operation and fast performance between the Microsoft .NET Framework–based application, Windows Media Player, and Internet Explorer. This not only helps ensure that the digital music and video playback have the same instant-on, always-on feeling of a CD player, but it also helped save development time.”
Plug and Play and support for software drivers to run peripheralscombine to help empower Virgin to be innovative and deliver the desired customer experiences—fortoday and tomorrow. “Someday soon we plan to let customers purchase and download digital music and video straight to a portable playerthroughUSB ports,” Fort says. “Windows Embedded for Point of Service gives the ability to quickly and easily add credit card scanners and receipt printers for self-service checkout—without having to go through convoluted hardware certification processes.”
Centralized Management
Microsoft centralized management software gives retail IT departments better managementof their existing store systems as well as support for a wide range of devices used in the store.
This delivers immediate benefits to Virgin’s operational bottom line by remotely fixing problems, which increases kiosk availability to customers and Virgin Megastores staff, and automating the kiosk software updates, which enablesthe IT team to streamline their activities to gain greater efficiencies.
“Updating the .NET Framework application is a snap with the Windows Embedded for Point of Service kiosks,” says Fort. “We simply drag-and-drop the new application from an operations console in Los Angeles, and Windows Embedded for Point of Serviceautomatically profiles the kiosk, reboots it, and installs the executable file. We don’t have to send any IT staff membersto the stores, which is a huge cost savings.”
“Windows Embedded for Point of Servicealso gives us advanced system alerts and accurate reports that allow us to monitor the state of hardware, software, and the operating system
and thus take a proactive approach to identifying potential problems,”Fort continues.
Fort also plans to integrate the Windows Embedded for Point of Service kiosks with his
umbrellasystem management solution—Microsoft Operations Manager. “Windows Embedded for Point of Servicewill easily hook into Microsoft Operations Managertogiveus a single platform for managing everything from the digital preview stations, to the Web server that delivers media clips, to the data warehouse that stores information about how the kiosks are used by customers.”
Common Look and Feel Across Platforms
The common look and feel across Microsoft operating systemsand applications ensures that new store employees can quickly learn all they need for their work so that new applications can bemore easily deployed.Windows Embedded for Point of Service made it easier for Fort to find programmers when it came time to build the .NETFramework application. “We had to hire a new developer for this project,” he recalls. “The fact that we were using Visual Basic made it really easy to find qualified people who were Microsoft certified. The bottom line is that Windows Embedded for Point of Service allows us to maximize our return on investment in other Microsoft solutions.”
Fort hopes the ultimate payoff will come in the future as Virgin Megastores begins to carefully track customer usage of the digital kiosks to get insight into customer behavior. “By using Microsoft SQL Serverto analyze the usage data from the kiosks running Windows Embedded for Point of Service, we hope to better understand our customers and what they want,” Fortconcludes.