IS4C stands for Integrated Systems for Co-ops. It started a number of years ago as an effort in integrating the database systems within the Wedge Co-op in Minneapolis. The motivation for the effort was that the Point of Sales system in use at the Wedge at the time seriously left something to be desired. To make up for the short-comings of the POS, the Wedge built, first, an alternative system to mine, and clean up, data from the POS for sales reporting. Slowly the system was integrated with other existing systems, such as membership and accounting. The Wedge then, took a leap and built an alternative backend maintenace system, where integrated data was fed to the POS. What the Wedge could not do was to alter and customize in any way the POS itself. All these alternative systems, laboriously built around the POS, while giving us what we wanted were "work arounds" that required maintenance in themselves.

In the summer of 2001, a group of IT managers from various co-ops around the country descended on a retail trade show in Chicago. It did not pass unnoticed that many companies at the show were flirting with the idea of web-based applications. That was at the end of the dot com bubble. The bubble had burst, but the technology developed for the web during the heady days remained, and it was a valid technology. After the trade show, the Wedge tried it's hands on developing an actual POS using web based technology. Development was rapid. Within a year it was fully implemented. The system is called WedgePOS at the Wedge. With a customized backend already built, and having our own POS, the electronic system at the Wedge become fully integrated - or rather, fully integratable, as full integration is always a work in progress.

It is realized that the system, so built, is of value to other co-ops. It was then decided that the souce code for that part of the system that deals directly with the Point of Sales would be given out generally to other co-ops. IS4C was at first the working name for the effort in bringing the system beyond the Wedge. It is now used in refering to (ready?) the open sourced POS system that is based on the POS portion of the integrated system at the Wedge, being developed for general use beyond the Wedge.