Operating System Choices ATM manufacturers can choose to continue using OS/2, despite discontinued support, or choose to start using one of the Windows or Windows Embedded operating systems. In this section, we will provide a detailed discussion of these options. Option One: IBM OS/2 While a case may be made for continuing to use OS/2 as the operating system, the following reasons make this an impractical option in practice: No accountable industry support after December 2004: Since IBM will no longer be supporting OS/2 after December 2004, customers will have to rely on third-party providers or plan on supporting OS/2 themselves. Increase in total cost of ownership: Since OS/2 expertise will be harder to come by, the cost of supporting OS/2 will continue to increase, leading to a significant increase in total cost of ownership. No new research and development: OS/2 is already a stagnant platform since there are no more new research and development done to improve the platform. As such, the platform will no longer support newer functionality demanded by the ATM industry. Option Two: Windows Operating System Family The second choice is to use one of the three Windows operating systems, namely Windows CE, Windows XP Embedded, or Windows XP Professional. Windows provides a proven platform that is already in deployment today, powering tens of thousands of ATMs for large financial institutions such as Bank of America and Wells Fargo. In the remaining sections of this paper, we will discuss in detail why Windows is the best operating system for ATMs. The following is an overview of the three Windows operating systems: Windows XP Embedded Windows XP Embedded is based on the same binaries as Windows XP Professional. Windows XP Embedded is a componentized version of Windows XP. This enables embedded developers to provide the rich functionality and flexibility of the Windows XP operating system while allowing them to select only the operating system features they need for customized, reduced-footprint embedded systems. However, as the name suggests, Windows XP Embedded is designed for use with embedded devices that are generally "hardened" or "dedicated use" systems. As such, Windows XP Embedded does not carry some of the same characteristics as Windows XP Professional, which was designed for use with Personal Computers (PCs). So, though you can configure a build of Windows XP Embedded with the equivalent functionality of Windows XP Professional, the resulting Windows XP Embedded operating system build will not support certain features available in Windows XP Professional because these features are not required by a typical embedded device. For example, the Windows XP Embedded build will not have the same end-user help functionality available in Windows XP Professional. Support and upgrades work a bit differently with Windows XP Embedded as well. In instances where Windows XP Professional may be easily upgraded with the latest hot fix or service pack, the same upgrade for Windows XP Embedded may be slightly more involved depending on which components were used in the device. This is not usually an issue because operating system updates and fixes need to be certified by the ATM vendor prior to applying them to an ATM network. You can find more information on the Windows XP Embedded page. Windows XP Professional Windows XP Professional is essentially Windows XP Professional for the PC. However, because ATMs are not general-purpose computing platforms, Windows XP Professional for use with the ATMs have certain restrictions put in place - such as limiting the number of processes or applications that may run simultaneously. Such restrictions allow the ATM to run the latest Windows operating system with all the functionality available to the PC, while costing less than the PC version of Windows XP Professional. You can find more information on the Windows XP Professional page. Windows CE Windows CE is the successor to Windows CE 3.0. Designed from the ground up for the embedded marketplace, Windows CE delivers a robust real-time operating system for rapidly building the next generation of smart mobile and small-footprint devices. With a complete operating system feature set and end-to-end development environment, Windows CE contains everything you need to create a custom Windows CE - based device that requires rich networking, hard real time, and a small footprint, as well as rich multimedia and Web browsing capabilities. Windows CE offers scalable wireless technologies, reliable core operating system services for demanding embedded designs, Microsoft .NET-enabled for creating rich personalized experiences and complete, easy-to-use tool set. You can find more information on the Windows CE page. Top of page