McDonalds picks Microsoft for point-of-sale

Software giant and burger giant get together

McDonalds has announced it has picked Microsoft's retail-specific operating system, XP Embedded, for its new worldwide point-of-sale system.

The burger giant has already rolled out the operating system to "several thousands of devices" in Europe and Asia and plans to use the OS in every restaurant in the chain.

McDonalds will also use a single point-of-sale application which, alongside XP Embedded, will help trim staff training costs, according to the company.

Windows XP Embedded, which targets small devices such as cash machines, slot machines and point-of-sale systems, is used by retailers including Virgin Megastore and Radio Shack. In the quarter to September 2005, Microsoft's mobile and embedded division earned the company $74m.

According to the Embedded Linux Consortium, 16 per cent of the embedded computing users have turned to Windows, while 43 per cent make use of Linux.