Review of RFID in 2007
Who were the strong marketers?
The RFID industry remains far more fragmented than customers and prospective customers would wish. The number of new players greatly exceeds the number being mopped up by Assa Abloy and - newly active in 2007 - Zebra Technologies and a few other acquirors. Curiously, most of the players continue to make little attempt to become famous and many hide what successes they have. By contrast, we continued to see those promoting UHF passive tag systems, shouting even their smallest successes from the rooftops and, in 2007 we could newly add those promoting WiFi RTLS. In general, this is to be commended and those promoting products at HF and other frequencies could learn from this. Indeed, by sheer effort, the UHF lobby has got several specifications written around their products, despite having to quietly shelve earlier promises that all obscured cases in any pallet load could be read with near 100% success, air baggage could be moved through much faster and UHF could even eliminate use of other frequencies in most RFID applications. Indeed, the more strident WiFi RTLS players have had to go quiet on their original assertion that no new infrastructure is needed. Nevertheless, the passive UHF and WiFi RTLS people publicise even the smallest orders, drive standards (tires, pallets, cases, baggage etc) and constantly penetrate even the most obscure applications in far away places. This is a lesson for the whole industry, much of which is engineering led if it is led at all.
