Goodbye Windows XP. You Won’t be Missed.

The time has come to say goodbye to Windows XP and for small business owners everywhere I hope this is a time of great rejoicing. As regular readers of this blog may know, Windows-based point of sale was the bane of my existence as a retailer and one of the main reasons I decided to build ShopKeep. The fundamental lack of efficiency and security in our Windows POS system cost me countless hours in my store and a no small amount of money.

 In 2004, I opened up my first store in Brooklyn. In the years to follow, one store grew into many – and keeping track of sales and inventory became increasingly important. I’m a technophile, so despite the enormous upfront costs, we jumped in headfirst and make the investment in multiple machines.  By the time I decided to create ShopKeep, we had seven registers running on Windows XP, three basement servers for our POS database and six Windows XP machines for store management tasks. Unfortunately, there was not a day that went by without us experiencing some form of software or hardware trouble.

We would often get viruses from employee web surfing, which almost always resulted in us having to wipe our entire hard drive and reinstall the operating system. On a good day, this process only took me about two hours – that’s if I wasn’t interrupted by the other typical day-to-day issues like “Hey Jason, the printer isn’t printing”, or “the scanner stopped working.”

It was never ending and it wasn’t just annoying – it was costly.  We lost sale after sale waiting for promised updates and ‘security patches’.

If you’re a small business owner who is currently running a Windows-based point of sale system, I’m sure you feel my pain. A POS system should save you time and make you more efficient (essentially the whole reason for existence of technology). It should not serve to further complicate your business day with constant crashes and regular repairs.

In 2008, the servers in my stores crashed, closing them indefinitely. We lost thousands if not tens of thousands of dollars. It was the final straw. As soon as I got home, I went on the hunt for a reliable, cloud-based point of sale system and when I couldn’t find one, that’s when ShopKeep POS was born.

Microsoft Windows has long been a target for hackers. Take the Target breach as an illustrative example: 70 million customer records were stolen as a result of data-stealing malware that was uploaded to the company’s Windows-based point of sale system. That’s a big number.  Especially, when you consider that, according to a Harris Poll of 2,000 consumers in January 2014, 60% blame merchants for customer data theft, not banks.

But the real headline of this whole incident is that it was all so easily predictable.  The technology required to ‘hack’ the average Windows XP system is just not that cutting edge – we’re not talking rooms full of evil geniuses here plotting nefarious schemes. The world of payments security has been innovating fast and Windows XP has simply failed to keep pace.

After 12 years, Microsoft has finally pulled the plug on its support for Windows XP. So, come April 8th, Windows XP will be dead, forever. As a merchant you will no longer be able to swipe a credit card through your XP machine and remain within the bounds of Payment Card Industry (PCI) compliance. This means that according to the industry, you are no longer considered to be taking adequate steps to keep your customer’s credit cards safe.

The end of PC-Based POS is near and if you haven’t already, it’s time to consider what this change means for your small business. This is a great opportunity for small business owners to make the switch to a more reliable and secure cloud-based point of sale system. The combination of the cloud, iPads and encrypted credit card swipers delivers an industry-leading security standard allowing you to better protect your customers and your business.

For a more detailed overview of what all this change means for your business, be sure to check out The Small Business Guide to Surviving Windows XP End of Life

*To be clear computers running on Windows XP will still work after the XP deadline, however at that time small business owners run an increased risk of becoming the latest in a series of credit card breaches.

Jason Richelson

Jason Richelson opened a specialty food and wine store in 2004, which he grew to employ more than 70 people in the Brooklyn and lower Manhattan branches. As an experienced retailer, Jason had many problems with his PC-based POS system, essentially crippling the business and inspiring him to design ShopKeep's iPad point of sale system.