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Dressing up for the occasion ...

July 8, 2014 by Richard Buckle — Founder and CEO, Pyalla Technologies, LLC

There's no question that ATMs are getting dressed up. Whether it's in support of something temporary — a concert or other event — or an installation of a more permanent nature, ATMs can put on a show. ATMs have joined in with the spirit of an event or theme on more than one occasion, sporting anything from a custom screen to a complete makeover.

Perhaps no more so than when Australian bank, ANZ decorated a selection of ATMs as "GayTMs" for Sydney's annual Gay and Lesbian Mardi Gras. These whimsical ATMs — decorated by various artists as part of an advertising campaign by ANZ — helped the bank walk away with the Grand Prix trophy at the recent Cannes International Festival of Creativity. (Also, through the duration of the campaign, off-us fees from the machines were donated to a nonprofit.)

Given such accolades, along with the boundless enthusiasm on display across Brazil, I'm surprised there wasn't something extra special done for ATMs at the World Cup. Perhaps next time! And just as countries such as France and Italy are associated with chic style then perhaps they will deploy "haute" ATMs, if they haven't already done so.

It matters little, however, what we do with the exterior of an ATM; the consumer experience is predicated upon the payment platform working behind the façade.  Dressing up for the occasion might add to the fun, but it also can add to the headaches for those operating the ATM networks if the mix of servers isn't up to the task.

Greater reliance on Web page displays — including full-motion video — is not without added complexity and costs. But looking ahead, I only see more innovative approaches in our pursuit of the ever-fickle consumer.

photo: chris evans

This was at the center of several recent conversations I've had with payments processors — those vendors who put together the myriad processes that allow us to walk up to any ATM and access our accounts.

In the past, these processes operated as part of a vendors' software stack, essentially working as a homogeneous entity running on a single system. But today this is all changing rapidly as we come to terms with the value proposition of specialized systems optimized to better support selected tasks.

At 2014 HP Discover, it was a case of form following function as a variety of industrial looking racks and towers dominated the exhibit floor. This event was predominantly for the business world so there were very few stylish devices on hand. Still, there are only so many black chassis that can fill one with excitement — and they weren't at this show.

While walking the exhibition floor, I ran into OmniPayments Inc. CEO Yash Kapadia, and he provided me with an update that suggested creative innovation is happening behind the scenes.

Yash anchored HP standard chassis for rack-mounted processors with enough processors to support the key components of his payments solution running on HP NonStop. He then threw in a couple of Atalla security modules before topping off with ProLiant servers running Linux and Windows. This single "Yash-tested system" could serve up Web pages — potentially video — while retaining the flexibility to run whatever security options customers required, and servicing the needs of operational and business managers.

It's worth reiterating that these systems were not part of HP's latest Converged Systems product family (although, with volume, they could very easily be accommodated by this business unit). Yash took on the responsibility of integrating, testing and providing financial institutions with a common operator interface.

"If HP built such a system themselves — yes, it's all HP components — then great," Yash said. "Shortly HP will engineer NonStop to support the Intel x86 architecture, allowing OmniPayments to run an optional all-blades chassis, but the real benefits here are twofold — removing the complexity while increasing the flexibility."

Flexibility is often overlooked when consideration is given to simplicity — there's never been a time when just one computer will do everything. Even when IBM ruled the roost with its mainframes, you couldn't put mainframes in every branch office so IBM responded with its general systems division line of systems, including the S/32, S/36 and so on. The point being that the more computer vendors looked to just one technology to address all business problems, the more their competitors moved to provide something different.

"It really is all about hybrids, when you get right down to it," Yash said. "Hybrid computers let me build a solution around components that offer different price points to perform functions better optimized for their architecture. Why would you ever want to run heavily-threaded Java routines better suited to SMP architectures that support your operator dashboards on a shared-nothing, MPP architecture as we have with NonStop? Add a Linux server, hook them together with a high-speed LAN connection — or two — and the resultant hybrid computer is better positioned to meet the needs of financial institutions."

Of course Yash made sure the operations were seamless across the hybrid computer so assembled, but a significant byproduct from going down this path was that potential customers really didn't need to know what was inside the cabinet.

"We could have called it the 'Y-Box' or the 'OmniPower Mark I' and no one would be the wiser," Yash said. "Even after four decades of being in the marketplace, there's still some residual hesitancy over the presence of NonStop in any proposed solution, and this just takes any conversations about NonStop out of the equation entirely."

There's a future for these hybrid computers, Yash said. "We hope to roll out a service offering utilizing hybrids installed in our own data centers, but that's a discussion for another day except, that is, to let you know we are prototyping something very exciting in this area."

Dressing for the occasion might prove to be both whimsical and attention-getting but enriching the consumer experience is a necessity, and with the vagaries in the consumer marketplace as we see today, having access to a variety of servers in a simplified hybrid computer package suggests there's considerable substance behind the façade no matter what the occasion.

About Richard Buckle

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Richard Buckle is the founder and CEO of Pyalla Technologies, LLC. He has enjoyed a long association with the Information Technology (IT) industry as a user, vendor, and more recently, as an industry commentator, thought leader, columnist and blogger. Richard participates in the HPE VIP Community where he is part of their influencer team.

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