A Software Engineer's Take on RFID Journal Live 2010
Posted by Patrick Sweeney on Wed, Apr 21, 2010
The 2010 RFID Journal Live show was a great opportunity for me to catch up with customers as well as learn about what the state of the art is among our partners and competitors. As this is the first RFID tradeshow I've attended, it was very interesting to see what was on display. A few observations that stood out in particular:
Commoditization of RFID readers and tags
By and large, it was remarkable to see just how much conformance and substitutability there was between vendors. And that is not meant to diminish in any way the great work that has been done by many of the manufacturers present. Rather, it shows just how effective the EPC standards have been for our industry, and how widespread their adoption. That said, there is still plenty of aggressive innovation going on within the parameters supplied by the standards - it's just great to see how level the playing field is, letting the best technology shine through rather than market victories via proprietary lock-ins. This also means RFID reader companies will have to start focusing on service and working even closer with their partners if they want to be a winner in the market.
New Innovations in Low-Cost, Short-Range RFID Readers
Several vendors where showing off small-footprint, short-range, low-cost readers and modules based on RFID reader chips manufactured by Austria Micro Systems. One in particular that stood out was by our partner, MTI. They have been making interesting product based on the Impinj R1000 chipset for some time now, product that has fueled our own innovation at ODIN. It's interesting now to contemplate how these new low-cost readers could be potentially applied to the consumer and retail space, where MTI seems to have their eye, as well as in other areas of business, such as our EasyTable and EasyPad solutions, where a short read range is an advantage. The potential for a twenty-dollar reader would seemingly open up a host of possible applications not previously thought feasible.
Simplification of the RFID Software Stack
Despite the increasing complexity of Microsoft's middleware, which conflates adding unnecessary software layers with implementation success, end users are trending the other way. A greatly simplified software stack and standards-based readers were the topic of many of my conversations with end-users, and the occasional student. The other side of the coin with commoditization is that it drives us at ODIN closer to achieving our vision of middleware-free RFID systems. Innovations like our EasyEdge software, which runs directly on the reader devices, obviating the need for middleware and the associated servers, along with functional interchangeability between readers and tags (though devices are by no means substitutable in terms of performance - vendor selections still need to be made carefully) drives us closer to what I see as the real inflection point: direct interface between business and ERP systems and RFID devices. This is what led Savi to choose ODIN as a partner. Once RFID is as easy to enable as plugging a barcode reader into a laptop, the adoption will increase by orders of magnitude.
Overall, it was an exciting conference, and I greatly enjoyed the time I spent with everyone in Orlando. I look forward to another great conference next year!