Symbol's Wireless LAN Device Certified For IBM'S Leading Point-of-Sale Systems
Wednesday May 16, 9:55 am Eastern Time
Press Release
Spectrum24 CB 1000 Only Product Available To Give IBM SurePOS 11Mbps Connectivity Over 802.11b Wireless LANs
HOLTSVILLE, N.Y.--(BUSINESS WIRE)--May 16, 2001-- Symbol Technologies, Inc. (NYSE:SBL - news) today announced that IBM (NYSE:IBM - news) has certified Symbol's Spectrum24® CB1000 wireless LAN client bridge for widespread use with its two leading Point-of-Sale (POS) systems -- the IBM 4694 and the new SurePOS 700 Series. The CB 1000 is the only product now certified to support the IBM SurePOS 700 Series in retail stores that have deployed 802.11b (Wi-Fi®) interoperability wireless local area networks (LANs).
The CB 1000 gives IBM's retail POS customers the option to migrate to wireless, and also allows them to choose between Spectrum24 Frequency Hopping (FH- 802.11) and Spectrum24 Direct Sequence (DS-802.11b) wireless LAN technologies when organizing in-store floor layouts. This is especially important for the large installed base of IBM POS customers who have already deployed wireless LANs for inventory management and those who plan to migrate from Symbol's FH wireless LANs to DS wireless LANs for applications requiring higher data rates (up to 11Mbps).
``This means that our customers now have the flexibility to use IBM POS Systems in both Ethernet wired or wireless configurations,'' said Tom Peterson, general manager, IBM Retail Store Solutions. ``The plug-and-play functionality of the CB 1000 is very appealing. This device gives customers the choice of wireless POS for seasonal floor layout changes, with the option to easily revert back to a wired configuration, by simply unplugging the client bridge and plugging in the Ethernet cable.''
``Since Symbol and IBM share the same customers in the retail business, it was very important to us to provide a wireless component that was straight forward and easy to implement at the lowest cost,'' said, Dwight Ogletree, vice president, Retail Systems, Symbol Technologies. ``When we marry Symbol's wireless products with IBM's leading POS systems, our customers can achieve the greatest level of worker mobility and flexibility, especially, when managing and organizing in-store layouts.''
IBM and Symbol engineers collaborated on an effort to develop a software solution for the CB 1000 and the IBM operating system--IBM 4690 OS V2 R3 and R4, that would allow the POS to adapt to either a wireless or wired network. The CB 1000/ 4690 OS solution underwent IBM's rigorous qualification third party product certification testing. After extensive performance, functionality, and configuration testing, the CB 1000 became the first product ever qualified for WiFi wireless connectivity to the IBM 4694 and the SurePOS 700, as well as the first product to give FH wireless connectivity to the SurePOS.
The CB 1000 (see datasheet and photos at www.symbol.com/wireless) is a small, lightweight snap -together case with an accessible PCMCIA slot that adapts to Spectrum24 2mbps FH or 11mbps DS ( WiFi certified) radios. The CB 1000 will support all the leading features of Symbol's Spectrum24 WLAN product family, including international roaming, robust security (WEP for 40/128 bit encryption), rate switching, operation in ad hoc and psuedo IBSS modes, DSMU and Micro AP (for 2Mbit products). The product supports a number of desirable configurations including the RS-232 industry standard serial port clients attached to servers; remote Ethernet clients; wired Ethernet-to-serial connection when no radio is installed; and point-to-point serial hops. |
