RFID Times

In my last post I talked about how RFID would fare in 2008 and what all we could expect from it in the future. Today I will be talking about what all has RFID has achieved in 2007 and what all areas benefited from this technology. 2007 brought various ups and downs for the technology where in some existing sectors it was performing quite well saw it fizz out on the other hand it made its presence felt in newer sectors. This was also a year which saw it being bogged down by controversies but one good thing about it was that it received a lot of media coverage than before.2007 even saw RFID achieve various technological developments and move towards developments of newer standards. Let’s have a look at what all RFID achieved in 2007.

Wal-Mart which was one of the leaders in implementation of RFID in the retail sector saw other retail players too move towards the technology and try and ape its success. Until then most of them were adopting a wait and watch policy. One such example is Reliance Retail in India which is looking forward to cash in from RFID.

Another positive thing which emerged out in 2007 was the growing interest of Europeans in RFID where it looked forward to develop certain standards pertaining to it and big names such as Marks & Spencer, Airbus etc moved towards RFID. Europe was not just about METRO implementing the technology. Though 2007 saw troubled economies around the globe but this did deter RFID from moving ahead. The last six months saw RFID pocketing $219 million in private equity investments with $59 million in the pipeline. The figures look small but you must realize the fact that this is just the start for the technology and will surely exude confidence in the industry.

This year also saw growing interest in RTLS and saw various implementations being announced and most of the implementation was carried out by the health sector. Another arena which RFID is making its presence felt is in the mobile arena which saw players such as Nokia and Samsung trying to emerge as early adopter.

One more thing occurred - the EPCglobal Gen2 UHF standard which was meant to create a difference in the supply chain deployments could not as companies found it difficult in implementation as problems were being faced in exchange of data. After all these good things you must be wondering how can RFID remain away from controversies and you are absolutely right since reports made rounds that RFID can cause cancer but still there are doubts about it and studies are going on to establish the authenticity of these claims.

Even though RFID has not been able to match the expectations of everybody but we can say at the end of the day that the RFID industry still registered progress and witnessed a strong implementation towards the asset management applications. Overall we can say that 2007 has been a promising year for the whole industry and we look forward to an even better year for the technology in 2008.

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