kiosk software
Industry Shift
New opportunities continue to alter the industry landscape .
By Laura Miller , Marketing Director KioWare
Introduction Interactive kiosks are not a new concept . In fact , companies have been deploying them for more than 35 years . Kiosks have long been a tool used primarily by large organisations with multiple locations , large staffs and extensive budgets . As technology has evolved , new markets and opportunities continue to emerge , creating a broader definition of what a kiosk looks like , what it can do and who it can help . This evolution varies by geographic location and mature markets look significantly different when compared to nascent markets .
Affordability Like many nascent technological tools from this generation , kiosks have seen a complete re-imagining from their original form . The changes that have occurred have shifted the landscape of the kiosk industry significantly . Like much of the technology of the past 50 years , kiosks continue to become less expensive and more accessible , appealing to a broader group of organisations and potential deployers . Kiosks are built using computing devices . Those computing devices have significantly dropped in price since their inception , with initial costs exceeding £ 5,200 and sizes that required large metal enclosures to protect from theft or damage . Those enclosures could also be costly and difficult to build . Add on the cost of developing a custom software application or a custom website , plus software to secure that application or website ( now known as kiosk software ), and the initial cost of one kiosk was quite prohibitive for most organisations .
Scalability Even as an emerging technology , scalability made traditional kiosks more cost effective . Once an enclosure was designed , building additional enclosures to the same specifications became less expensive . Similarly , the computer hardware and kiosk software became less expensive when purchased in quantity . More significantly , once an application was developed , the cost of that was negligible and benefited significantly by scaling .
Large corporations with multiple locations were able to leverage this scalability and deploy kiosks to improve customer experiences , increase sales , create brand awareness , decrease wait times and optimize staffing . Medium and small businesses continued to see little opportunity to utilize kiosks in a cost effective and affordable manner .
Accessibility Then things changed . With the evolution of the computer and the creation of the tablet , both PCs and mobile devices have become more affordable to purchase and easier to enclose . As a result in the decreased size of PCs , the creation of the touch screen and the invention of the tablet , enclosure sizes can be reduced and at a lower cost . Out of the box enclosures can be purchased as a single unit or in cost saving quantities , without paying for a custom solution .
Software has also become more accessible as every business has the opportunity to create a website using an out-of-the-box content management system , easy to create online stores and low cost application development . Leveraging existing collateral , businesses can easily and inexpensively deploy one or multiple kiosks for a fraction of the cost of early kiosks .
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