Connecting Stores. Featuring powerful ways to create consistent experiences for consumers, whether at the point of service, within the aisles, across the Web, at home or on the go, booth innovations will include Microsoft Surface, Microsoft Virtual Earth, and the upcoming multitouch features and gestures capabilities in Windows 7. NRF attendees can also interact with the latest in digital marketing and personalized shopping tools including Microsoft Tag, a new mobile marketing solution that quickly and easily connects mobile users with mobile content from publishers and peers. In addition, the company will unveil Windows Embedded POSReady 2009, the next generation of Windows Embedded for Point of Service (POS), Microsoft's embedded operating system optimized for OEMs building POS solutions and enterprises using POS devices.
Connecting the Enterprise. Retail employees can help increase productivity and improve operational efficiencies in the back office with technologies that are designed to support tighter store-to-headquarters collaboration, enterprise business intelligence and store infrastructure optimization. Demonstrations of Microsoft Dynamics products will present how retailers can use integrated financial, customer relationship and supply chain management tools. In addition, NRF attendees can learn how to help reduce hardware and software costs by making virtualization a critical component of their IT centers.
Connecting Commerce. In this area of the booth, attendees will learn how they can deliver coordinated, consistent and engaging experiences across multiple channels for consumers. Attendees will see in action how an interoperable technology platform based on solutions that include Microsoft Commerce Server 2009 can make the difference for multichannel retailers.
Microsoft executives will also lead the following educational sessions:
Jan. 12, 1:45 p.m., 3D05: "Competing at the Point-of-Service: A Recipe for Success," Ilya Bukshteyn at Microsoft and Jeroen Timmer, director of IT at Douglas Cosmetics, a fragrance and cosmetics retailer implementing the new Windows Embedded POSReady 2009 platform
Jan. 13, 10:30 a.m., 3D04: "Building Bridges, Replacing Silos," Larry Negrich, Microsoft
Jan. 13, 3 p.m., 3D04: "Show Your Customers the Big Picture With Microsoft Virtual Earth," Tim Henderson at Microsoft and Mike Guhl at Home Depot
