Guitar Center, Inc. and Datavantage, a subsidiary of MICROS Systems, Inc., have announced an agreement to deploy Datavantage’s Xstore, a Java-based Point-of-Sale (POS) system, across the Guitar Center retail chain.

Guitar Center’s migration from its legacy POS system to Datavantage Xstore in its more than 195 Guitar Center stores is expected to provide the Company’s sales associates with better sales tools, increase productivity and improve the overall customer experience. Guitar Center anticipates that the POS system will be able to securely manage software enhancements through Xstore’s Java and XML-driven architecture, which allows for easy customization and upgrades.

“Datavantage has shown a deep level of expertise regarding our business processes,” stated John Zavada, CIO of Guitar Center. “We evaluated several Point-of-Sale systems and were extremely impressed with the superior architecture of Xstore. Datavantage’s Xstore will allow us to improve sales support and reduce training time in our stores. With this new POS system, we will have the retail functionality we require as well as the capability to incorporate new extensions to meet Guitar Center’s unique business needs and our customers’ specific shopping experience needs.”

“Guitar Center’s selection of Datavantage is a continuation of our successful approach to growing our list of tier one Xstore customers,” stated Chaz Napoli, Datavantage President. “By deploying a robust application that delivers a world class shopping experience to its customers, Guitar Center stays in front of trends in its unique market space.”

Datavantage currently supports more than 200 retailers with a variety of field management solutions, including store systems, business analytics, and marketing applications. Datavantage Xstore, developed in a J2EE Java environment following NRF ARTS industry standards and offering many deployment choices, is Datavantage’s fourth POS application. It continues the Datavantage design philosophy of focusing on ease-of-use and deep functionality, while maximizing the capabilities made possible on a Java platform.