 | Thursday, March 31, 2005
Issue 84 | | Will Smith, Editor |  |
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Impinj CEO: GEN 2 Tags Ready in Second Quarter
Seattle, Washington-based Impinj CEO Bill Colleran announced at the PC Forum this week in Scottsdale, Arizona, that his company would introduce RFID tags and readers that conform to the GEN 2 specification sometime in the second quarter. The reader, dubbed Speedway Reader, will read 1,500 tags per second. Colleran was naturally bullish on the RFID tag market, saying, "There is no reason 5 cent tags aren't possible. This is the first market ever for consumable silicon."
Since GEN 2's ratification last December, the tag manufacturers have been ramping up to begin production. The third quarter of this year is when most expect to see GEN 2 product available, so if Colleran's Impinj makes Q2, it might be the first to market. But that's hard to predict with any certainty, of course. Texas Instruments, Philips, Alien, Rafsec, and others are all racing to get GEN 2 tags and readers out the door. Exactly when each company succeeds in doing so is anybody's guess.
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P&G Funds Indiana University RFID Program
Indiana University's Kelley School of Business in Bloomington, Indiana, has been tapped to receive $150,000 from Proctor & Gamble's charitable arm to develop and offer coursework in RFID. The Kelley MBA program already has a strong focus on supply chain education, including its Supply Chain Academy program. The school's interim dean was quoted as saying, "With changes in RFID technologies, businesses are abuzz with its potential, and it is vital that our graduates leave our program ready to play a leading role at corporations that have always looked to Kelley for such understanding."
The effort by P&G to spawn more business graduates with RFID expertise is implicit recognition of the widely-reported trend that demand for RFID skills and labor will outstrip supply in coming years. In early March, the Computing Technology Industry Association released the results of a survey indicating that 80% of those interviewed considered the RFID talent available in the marketplace insufficient to meet the rising tide of RFID deployments.
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Report: RFID Source of European M&A Activity in 2005
RFID is named in a recent "Technology Insights" report authored by the PricewaterhouseCoopers Advisory Group as a source of considerable European merger and acquisition activity through 2005. The report cites the combination of European technology firms' vast financial resources but relatively small global footprint as evidence that 2004's M&A activity will only heat up this year. As RFID technology matures and European demand for it strengthens, serious software and services players simply must offer RFID solutions, according to the report. For those whose RFID capabilities are currently nonexistent or inadequate, acquiring the technology to quickly gain entry in the market makes a lot of sense.
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Ritz Camera Improves Customer Experience with RFID
We reported last week that American Express had signed a deal with Ritz Camera to equip all its locations to accept RFID-based contactless credit card payments under AMEX's ExpressPay program. This article from PC Magazine highlights some details of that deal. The photo specialty chain does not see using RFID in their supply chain any time soon, according to Vice President of Information Systems Bob O'Hern. O'Hern believes that that reality is still some years off. But the company has, in the face of stiff competition from Wal-Mart and other retailers that offer photo development and services, embraced the technology for contactless payments. With the faster checking-out that contactless provides, the shopping experience is more efficient, and therefore more enjoyable, for the customer.
But lest you assume that Ritz's contactless payment strategy is a no-brainer for other retail establishments, think again. While there are benefits, it is costly to update a point-of-sale (POS) system to handle RFID contactless payments. Indeed, Ritz's O'Hern acknowledged that if the company had not already had plans for a company-wide POS system upgrade, "Contactless all by itself probably would have been a very hard sell."
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RFID Implantee Pleased With Results
For the hundreds of you that clicked on Monday's issue to see pictures of Amal Graafstra have his doctor friend implant an RFID chip in his hand, the same Mr. Graafstra has recently given an interview about the experience. Among other topics covered, Graafstra discusses the insertion procedure in vivid detail as well as his plans for what technology he will deploy in his house to take advantage of his new chip.
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About RFID Update - Launched in early 2004 to provide timely analysis of RFID industry news, RFID Update publishes editorial briefings every Monday and Thursday for the growing ranks of top level executives involved in the deployment of RFID projects. Each issue distills the impact of global RFID developments by providing an analytical summary of the news and issues most pertinent to successful RFID implementations.
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