Zebra earned its black and white strips by inventing barcode scanning technology. Today, it’s nearly impossible to think of a company that holds inventory and does not have barcodes for inventory tracking, labels or ordering.

Imagine walking down the aisle of your favorite grocery store. When you find your items, you can scan them right away with a handheld device and bag them on the spot. As you shop, this device can show you a running total of how much you are spending, where to find items in the store and even cross off items on your shopping list you started at home. Then, when your cart is full, all you have to do is quickly pay and walk out of the store. There is no need to wait in line, unpack your cart, scan each item, bag everything and then re-load the cart. Mainly popular in Europe, this dream shopping experience is accomplished with the Zebra MC18.

Why do retailers want to invest in an enterprise device when customers smartphones can essentially do the same thing?

• Ergonomic - Since shopping involves both hands, it was designed to be light weight, comfortable in your hand and intended for one hand use.

• Rugged - The MC18 had a 4’ drop test, fully charged to last the length of your shopping trip and re-enforced wifi to get connection in those hard to reach locations.

• Speed - Since there was no need to wait in line to checkout at the end of the shopping trip, this created a more enjoyable user experience. Happy customers returned and spent more money.

The MC18 device was super cool but it was nothing without Zebra’s Integrated Software Vendors. The vendors created apps designed to run on Zebra devices and this is where I learned about the value of software.