PAXCON 2024
by Tom McCole
Despite my domestic tranquility administrator’s objections, I willingly took a break this week from my annual deciduous tree refuse relocation tasks to attend my third Pax Conference in Orlando. I can state with certainty that it was well worth putting the leaf blower back on the shelf and heading south. My guess is the neighbors also appreciated my absence since occasionally (ahem) some of my leaves tend to traverse the property line.
This is my third consecutive PaxCon and clearly the best one yet. The event venue is always a top-notch resort located near one of the major parks. This year was no exception. It was held at the Loews Sapphire Falls Resort just outside the Universal Studios gate. Pax always hosts an uber-extravagant private event for the attendees. This year the event was held at “The Wizarding World of Harry Potter,” to give a big thank you for their resellers, ISVs, ISOs and business partners.
I have been engaged in payment and POS technology development seemingly since Wilma Flintstone and Betty Rubble first yelled, “charge it!” I have worked mostly in the software development realm with some hardware development mixed in. Almost never during these my development experiences has the end-product been ready when promised. What continually draws me to PaxCon is to peek under the hood at what POS product magic their engineers have developed in the past 12 months. At my first PaxCon, they introduced images and mockups of the Elys commerce tablet product line and said they would be market ready in the next 6-12 months. At the following year’s PaxCon, sure enough the mockups were market-ready products as promised. Who else does that?
Andy Chau, CEO, has assembled a terrific team that really delivers!
Last year’s PaxCon introduced their new Uptrillion cloud commerce platform created to offer a veritable cornucopia of software and services for businesses. Uptrillion is designed to provide unified essential business services in a single portal. Available services will include: invoicing, inventory management, financial services, tap & text-to-pay, remote key management, mobile device management and a virtual marketplace.
PaxCon also provides a showcase for their key commerce partners and resellers including Elavon/US Bank, RSPA reseller organization, distributors BlueStar, ScanSource, and CDE, Space Pole, Havis, and numerous retail/hospitality POS software companies. It is also an outstanding networking opportunity for all attendees to exchange ideas and experiences that can benefit everyone. If you haven’t been to PaxCon, put it on your calendar for next year. I promise it won’t disappoint!
Tom McCole is a veteran payment technology executive and business development consultant based in Atlanta. Tom@mmtmagonline.com
