RFID 2.0 - SIMPLE

  

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First email, then iPods and now eBooks; each of these technologies have been transformational leading to significant change of a type some folk like to call ‘disruption' - meaning there were people, companies and whole market sectors that got disturbed and in many cases eliminated by the change. When was the last time you bought 35mm camera film?

So when we talk about technologies that have the power to transform, people sit up and take notice for fear of disruption in their own back yard - after all, these days it's not the large that eat the small, but the fast that eat the slow. And that's transformation in a nutshell.

Email, iPods and eBooks have something in common - they all achieved market transformation by mastering one key attribute, an elusive beast we in the technical community often miss by a country mile; simplicity.

Let's try for a definition; easy purchase, quick setup, great integration, ease of use balanced with rich feature sets and of course, great service. These combine to produce a simple offering we can quickly understand, value and use. For you tech heads wed to complexity and your favourite C++ garbage collection routines who think this is a consumer phenomenon, tell me how many software developers out there are writing CORBA interfaces compared to the number developing (oh, and actually deploying) Web Services.

I remember having three MP3 players because the first had the best audio quality, a second had greater capacity and yet another was small enough to go jogging with (God be with the days). I actually had to have two duplicate music libraries to service all these devices and a Minidisc player for good measure! How did I ever find time to actually listen to anything? Then the iPod arrived and pretty quickly I understood this meant less disk space, fewer cables, easier purchase from the clever iTunes Store and a single, brilliantly simple device. Oh, and I actually got to listen to stuff.

Corporate purchasing is influenced by the same factors; easy purchase, quick setup, great integration, ease of use balanced with rich feature sets and of course, great service which all lead to quantifiable return on investment. Simplicity wins and that's what RFID 2.0 is all about.

For the past eight years or so, RFID has quietly gone about its business winning significant market share while disrupting older technologies. I say quietly because I'm not sure we appreciate just how pervasive RFID has become; inventory sure, but also travel cards, ski lifts, walking sticks, aircraft parts, car keys, fleet cars, tools...the list goes on. But it's fair to say RFID has suffered from complexity preventing even wider adoption. It's not exactly been easy to purchase, configure, install, integrate or support - and many system integrators without the physics backbone have failed to deliver. The industry has trumpeted how accuracy has improved beyond recognition in the last two years, but that's not enough - we must address complexity.

The good news is that's changing, and at ODIN we're leading the charge with RFID 2.0 solutions focused on simplicity. What's RFID 2.0? Think of it like the iPod for RFID - focused solutions which are easy to purchase, quick to setup, deliver seamless integration and ease of use balanced with rich feature sets, backed by great service. Simple!

Imagine an RFID tunnel that slots into your logistics operations immediately automating shipping, receiving and replenishment processes. That's EasyTunnel™, an RFID 2.0 solution from ODIN that is installed and operational in under 24 hours.

Imagine a portable RFID portal that can turn any shipping container into a fully monitored environment tracking the status and location of your tagged items as they travel all over the world in real time. That's EasyContainer, an RFID 2.0 solution from ODIN that installs magnetically in under two minutes!!

Back up and think about that - when was the last time you read ‘RFID' and ‘installs in under two minutes' in the same sentence?

From clever monitoring software that runs on the reader itself eliminating the complexity and cost of middleware, to fully-featured low-cost asset tracking, RFID 2.0 solutions are all about simplicity. And because ODIN has the best RF physics team of any company worldwide, all that RF complexity is hidden away under the hood while users benefit from increased accuracy and reliability.

What's left are great solutions that customers can quickly understand, value and use, leading to better return on investment. Watch out - that's transformational.