[luau] NEWS: Sherwin-Williams to use Linux Cash Registers

[W. Wayne Liauh]

One of my clients in Taiwan is doing Linux-based POS for China 
Petroleum.  This client is a very small company but China Petroleum is 
one of the Forbes 1000 companies in the world.  They have been doing 
that for about 2.5 years.  As I am told (actually they never tell me 
anything), things are going very well.

This client of ours also makes IDE thin-client cards with embedded Linux 
and flash to replace HD.

Based on the large number of posts, it is not difficult to detect that 
there are a lot of interests here in "thin-clients" and "POS systems".

Man, you don't need me to remind you:  This is our future.  I have been 
paying close attention to Linux since Red Hat 4.2, and I am fully 
convinced that timing couldn't have been better.  But the opportunity 
window could, and very likely will, pass by us.

I remember almost a score of years ago when I was working for Exxon in 
Houston, a University of Texas student came to our office trying to sell 
IBM clones that his company, "PC Limited", built (in his dorm) with 
components from Taiwan that are identical to what IBM uses.  At that 
time, it was unthinkable to buy a PC that was not built by IBM.  But his 
price/performance was simply too attractive.  One of my colleagues 
bought one for home use.  Eventually our department began purchasing his 
PCs, and he changed his company name to "Dell".   The rest is history.

Wouldn't it be great if we could repeat the history (somewhat) in Hawaii?!