McDonald's Technology Trials

from the keep-on-trialing dept

McDonald's has been building a reputation for testing out new technologies in their various restaurant locations, though, it's questionable how successful most of these trials are. In the past, we've covered stories about McDonald's plans to offer wireless "speedpass" purchasing of food, DVD rental kiosks, internet access kiosks, and (of course) WiFi access with the purchase of a Happy Meal. Baseline takes an interesting look at a the overall efforts of McDonald's to remain on technology's cutting edge. It sounds like they've had very mixed results. Specifically, the reporter points out that an attempt to trial the WiFi access in Manhattan was a dismal failure. No one else appeared to even be trying the service, but when they set up their laptop, the access point was nowhere to be found. A quick phone call to Cometa (who provides the service) confirmed that it wasn't working, but no explanation was given. Not exactly building confidence in the offering. Other McDonald's efforts seem to have been focused on trying to be a venture capitalist/incubator to seed new technology companies. However, it sounds like they're realizing this is a bit outside of their own core competence, and have decided they might be better off focusing on convincing customers to buy more Big Macs than build new companies.
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Reader Comments

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  1. identicon
    Anonymous Coward, 7 Jul 2003 @ 12:46pm

    maccas

    yes i agree

    link to this | view in thread ]

  2. identicon
    Anonymous Coward, 7 Jul 2003 @ 1:05pm

    No Subject Given

    McDonalds uses SCO products.

    link to this | view in thread ]

  3. identicon
    Max Vincent, 7 Jul 2003 @ 1:30pm

    I think it would be nicer

    if they spent the tech-money teaching thier mployees to make the food properly, and to avoid just tossing the ingredients half and half into the boxes, and then upside down into the bags.

    No amount of high tech "sweeteners" are going to entice me back to that franchise until they get back to making the food properly. I just got tired of buying garbage from some counter-person who pretended she was doing me a supreme favor.

    link to this | view in thread ]

  4. identicon
    Joe Scmoe, 7 Jul 2003 @ 2:40pm

    Gonna have to go Balmer here...

    MENU! MENU! MENU!
    MENU! MENU! MENU! MENU! MENU! MENU!
    MENU! MENU! MENU! MENU! MENU! MENU! MENU! MENU!

    MENU!

    link to this | view in thread ]

  5. identicon
    aNonMooseCowherd, 7 Jul 2003 @ 7:49pm

    the Bic Mac gene

    Is it true that they're funding biomedical research to create a gene that gives people an insatiable appetite for Bic Macs?

    link to this | view in thread ]


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