A comment on 2008, and a look ahead to 2009. In 2008, while no major rollouts occurred, we did see lots of good traction and evidence that both active and passive RFID continue to progress forward towards mainstream adoption. We saw strong momentum in Europe, Asia and Latin America. In 3Q08, we saw increased activity [...]

We continue to see increased focus on the development of application specific standards. In December, the Financial Services Technology Consortium (FSTC) provided the requirements for its RFID Data Center Asset Tracking Standard, which we view as having significant importance for the potential adoption of RFID in enterprise data centers in a wide number of vertical [...]

As we discussed in the August edition of RFID Monthly, key retail use cases for RFID seem to be focused on out-of-stocks, inventory management, item location and loss prevention/security. Most of the early use case development centers on out-of-stocks and inventory management as they have a direct impact on revenue as well as operations. However, [...]

Many are aware that Monsanto has been testing RFID, most notably for corn. We understand Monsanto is moving forward with a meaningful project that could account for several million tags in 2009. We see two factors that might help move this project forward. First, Monsanto continues to perform well, even in a difficult economic environment. [...]

Apparel, as a group, continues to have the some of the most advanced pilots, and many have established a strong ROI based on improving out-of-stocks and inventory management. Many of the inventory management pilots are revealing substantial labor savings opportunities. We are also aware of a few anecdotal examples where the RFID system is providing [...]

M/A Com announced availability of its direction of travel (DOT) floor mounted portal that offers direction sensing capability. The system is Gen 2 and LLRP compliant, using an Impinj reader and a monostatic antenna with deal beams. The product is currently available in North America and Europe, with other international versions offered in the future.
 
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There is no meaningful software news to report this month, but we have had the chance to discuss the current state of software in the RFID industry with several players and think that the evolution of custom code to modular system continues to progress. For many of the current pilot projects we continue to see [...]

Washington State is again visiting the issue of privacy and RFID with its new state legislature with three bills sponsored and introduced by State Representative Jeff Morris. In our view, we see more of the same as type of legislation as last year, which tends to be overly regulatory in nature with only modest focus [...]

In the November edition of RFID Monthly, we highlighted how the election of Barack Obama to the presidency and a Democratic majority in congress could enhance the chances of union formation in retail and Pharma. Our concern is that unions tend to look unfavorably at labor saving technology, such as RFID. However, we now believe [...]

The U.S. DoD announced the RFID III contract has been awarded to Savi Technology, Systems & Process Engineering Corporation (SPEC), Northrop Grumman Information Technology and Unisys. The awards allow each of the providers to compete for future active RFID needs. The Army established the $428M indefinite-delivery, indefinite-quantity contract, which includes hardware, software and services. The [...]