GERS Confab Looks Ahead To New Retail Technologies

San Diego— GERS highlighted new technologies it is developing to enable retailers to respond more quickly and efficiently to changing business conditions during its annual Retail World Conference, held here last month at the Westin Horton Plaza Hotel.

Over 225 leading retailers and GERS partners gathered for the event, dubbed Framework for the Future, which was the first to be held since the company's recent change of ownership. The sale was largely transparent to customers and attendees, as GERS management has remained intact.

Fifteen core sessions included a review of GERS' Retail Application Framework, based on the well-established J2EE standard and Web services-oriented technologies, to facilitate rapid development of solutions that provide real-time retailing, anywhere and any time on any device. Also examined was Enterprise Application Integration, which provides workflow, messaging and middleware solutions within the Retail Application Framework that facilitates communications to and from GERS applications. Other highlights included eight hands-on labs that provided attendees with practical experience in various technologies like advanced system administration techniques and mobile selling solutions, and a lunch-and-learn workshop that demonstrated possible applications of RFID tools in a typical retail organization.

Keynotes included forward-looking themes from GERS president/CEO Jim Henderson, AMR research director Paula Rosenblum and IBM worldwide marketing director Giovanni Gigliotti.