Regal Cinemas offering Linux with your popcorn

Computerworld - Regal Cinemas is now serving up popcorn, candy and drinks to moviegoers using new Linux-based IBM point-of-sale (POS) terminals that are being installed in 536 theaters around the nation.
In an announcement today, the Knoxville, Tenn.-based Regal Entertainment Group Inc. theater chain said it's buying about 3,500 IBM SurePOS 500 Series machines that will all be linked electronically to a central IBM eServer iSeries midrange server at its headquarters.
Regal is also looking to use Linux for in-theater kiosks where customers can buy tickets electronically or pick up tickets they have already ordered online. One kiosk, built with an IBM NetVista server and a ticket printer, is now in use on a pilot basis, and the company is considering deploying additional test beds.
Todd King, vice president of technical information services at Regal, said the company knew it wanted its next generation of POS systems to run with Java-based applications that could be custom-built for concession stands, including inventory and full sales capabilities.
"We knew exactly what we wanted to run on somebody's platform," he said. The company's previous system was made up of traditional cash registers, which weren't transaction-based, leaving inventory and sales tracking to be done manually.
The IBM machines, which are running Red Hat Linux, were selected because, with 536 locations and no on-location technical personnel, the devices have to be extremely reliable, King said.
"The whole game here was to try to reduce the feet on the street with machines that would run and run and run," he said. "We're putting Linux out there because it makes sense."
About 2,700 of the new POS machines have already been installed, with an additional 800 to be deployed by the end of the year, said J.E. Henry, Regal's CIO. "The combination of Linux and IBM allows us to reduce the cost of ownership," Henry said. "We're a very frugal company."
The kiosk pilot project is also important for Regal, King said. "It's really becoming a mission-critical application," because kiosks give customers an easy and fast way to buy tickets so they have more time to grab food and drinks at concession stands, the lifeblood of movie theater profits.
The existing self-service ticket kiosks being used in many Regal locations have suffered from high breakdown rates and will be replaced with a new system once the pilot project ends.
John Sarsgard, vice president of Linux solutions at IBM, said the new POS terminals and the kiosk test project are aimed at making needed changes at Regal. "They know they'rehaving a problem, so they're going to try it with Linux," Sarsgard said. "[They] can't afford for it to go down."