ProQ

ProQ is treated here as a point-of-sale (POS) software brand. The supplied evidence consists of the general Wikipedia article on point of sale, which describes the category rather than the specific ProQ brand. A POS system is the time and place at which a retail transaction is completed: the merchant calculates the amount owed, indicates it to the customer, and accepts payment, often issuing a receipt. Modern POS systems combine hardware such as cash registers, barcode scanners, weighing scales, payment terminals and touch screens with software that can also handle inventory management, CRM, financials and warehousing. The evidence explains that POS software evolved from proprietary electronic cash registers in the 1970s (including IBM's 3650/3660 store systems and microprocessor-controlled registers built for McDonald's) through the first graphical touchscreen POS software, introduced by Gene Mosher under the ViewTouch trademark in 1986, to the wide range of Windows- and Unix-based POS applications developed from the 1990s onward. Vendors sometimes market POS systems as "retail management systems" because they do much more than process sales. No brand-specific facts about ProQ — its founding, headquarters, ownership, product lineup, executives or market position — appear in the supplied evidence, and none are asserted here. The entry is therefore limited to the category context and is flagged for review so that primary sources on the ProQ brand can be added.

The supplied evidence does not document a brand-specific history for ProQ. It documents the history of the point-of-sale software category in which ProQ is positioned. Early electronic cash registers (ECR) were controlled with proprietary software and were limited in function and communication capability. In August 1973, IBM released the IBM 3650 and 3660 store systems, essentially a mainframe computer used as a store controller that could control up to 128 IBM 3653/3663 point-of-sale registers; this was the first commercial use of client-server technology, peer-to-peer communications, local area network (LAN) simultaneous backup and remote initialization, and by mid-1974 it was installed in Pathmark stores in New Jersey and Dillard's department stores. One of the first microprocessor-controlled cash register systems was built by William Brobeck and Associates in 1974 for McDonald's Restaurants, using the Intel 8008 microprocessor. In 1986, Gene Mosher introduced the first graphical point of sale software featuring a touchscreen interface under the ViewTouch trademark on the 16-bit Atari 520ST color computer; it was first demonstrated publicly at Fall Comdex 1986 in Las Vegas and installed in several restaurants in the US and Canada. Also in 1986, IBM introduced its 468x series of POS equipment based on Digital Research's Concurrent DOS 286 and FlexOS. From the 1990s onward, a wide range of POS applications were developed on platforms such as Windows and Unix, and businesses increasingly adopted POS systems to eliminate price tags, implement discounts and loyalty schemes, and improve stock control. Vendors sometimes refer to their POS system as a "retail management system" because it also covers inventory management, membership systems, supplier records, bookkeeping, purchase orders, quotations, stock transfers, sale reporting and in some cases remote outlet networking. Where ProQ fits within this category history is not established by the supplied evidence, and no dates, founders or ownership facts about ProQ are asserted.

• Point-of-sale (POS) software

  Category-level description only: POS software processes and records transactions between a company and its consumers at the time goods or services are purchased, and may include inventory management, CRM, financials and warehousing features.

1. 1Point of sale — Wikipediaen.wikipedia.org
2. 2Bangladesh's construction procurement still runs on phone calls and Whatsapp. This startup wants to change thatthedailystar.net