$50 million to get #1 Google Ranking
Posted by Patrick Sweeney on Wed, Jun 29, 2011
We finally did it this week, ODIN hit #1 for organic search on Google for the term RFID Software. For all of you out there wondering how we did it, the answer is simple: $50 million on research and development in RFID software investment makes it happen.
ODIN started out five years ago realizing that traditional RFID middleware was not what companies adopting RFID needed. We were deploying other RFID middleware for the first five years of our business. During those early years adopters of RFID told us they wanted five components to RFID software:
- Accuracy
- Easy integration
- No added IT burden and servers
- Location intelligence
- Development flexibility
No RFID middleware company understood the physics so they were having difficulty getting good read rates, so we decided to build it ourselves.
ODIN started out with our roots RFID Physics - no one knows more about the RF physics and RFID accuracy than ODIN. ODIN's labs have consistently refined, tested and helped develop the most accurate RFID systems in the world, from the US DoD to life saving RFID systems at Mayo Clinic. We realized that RFID accuracy was mostly driven by the combination of equipment choice and proper configuration - first Gen RFID middleware ignored many of the very deepest configuration parameters. ODIN's RFID engineers knew how to make RFID readers really hum, so we started digitizing that accuracy and configuration method with software. That was our first big hit.
Most companies adopting RFID have expensive and complex ERP systems like SAP, or Oracle. They wanted to get more from that investment as easily as possible. Early RFID middleware companies were making it hard to get good "add on" value, those middleware companies wanted to replace client's ERP systems, no wonder most RFID middleware companies failed. We saw that first hand.
We kept hearing from CIOs that data center consolidation and virtualization were their top priority. No one wanted to add dedicated server for RFID middleware at each location. One of my mentors and former Apple CIO John Scully gave me the inspiration to put intelligence on the devices - thus was born RFID's first operating system, EasyEdge. That was our second big hit. But then we had some trouble.
We hit a roadblock with EasyEdge at the end of 2009. It worked great to get 99.9% accurate RFID reads, it was simple to integrate to SAP, Maximo, Oracle, etc and the thin OS sat lithely on RFID readers (not requiring any added IT burden). EasyEdge effectively provided a heartbeat for each RFID reader that solved about 80% of clients' needs, however there was no sophisticated intelligence. Our RFID software needed a central nervous system.
We looked at five different companies from the UK to the Valley and ended up acquiring Reva Systems They had invested over $35 million of Charles Rivers Ventures and Northbridge capital to develop an incredible intelligence, locationing, and scalable RFID software. This was the central nervous system that sophisticated users like Morgan Stanley, J&J, The US State Department and others needed. This was our third hit - bases loaded.
After the Acquistion in 2010 we continued to develop and add functionality to EasyEdge and EasyTAP. Now we have by far the best RFID software in the world. It's deployed in more than 50 countries on thousands of RFID readers. There is nothing as accurate, or easy to integrate. Since we built our work flow development kit (WDK) for RFID partners now it's very simple for others to leverage as well. This was the grand slam!
It's no wonder ODIN is now number one on Google for RFID software. Over the last year our clients have told us we're number one with them as well!