Pizza delivery company Domino's Pizza has signed a contract with Dell to provide desktop computers and servers for all of its 270 UK stores.

The rollout is the first step in the company's migration from its existing DOS-based system to a Windows-based environment.

Store systems manager Tim Cawley says the rollout will be completed by the end of the year, providing its franchised stores with a more reliable point-of-sale (POS) system as sales continue to grow.

'The systems include a lot of built-in redundancy, helping to ensure that our stores never go down,' said Cawley.

The company's US head office is evaluating various Windows-based POS applications for future rollout. The desktop implementation will provide the foundation for the new application when it is selected.

Cawley says the company continues to investigate new technologies for its stores.

'We're a very technology focused company and we are continually reviewing various technologies, such as WAP, to establish how suitable they could be for us,' he said.

Domino's was one of the first UK companies to provide 'real-time' ecommerce, with online orders being delivered to homes in under an hour, compared to the usual one or two day delivery cycle for most ecommerce sites.

The company continues to expand rapidly, opening 34 new delivery stores last year across the UK.

Pizza is the single largest category in the home delivered food market, presently accounting for about £400m of the £1.1bn total.