Reader's Choice 2006: RFID Hardware
| 1. TYCO |
| 2. Markem |
| 3. Printronix |
Breakout Winners
Customer Experience
To make it in the RFID market, suppliers must support the worldwide adoption of a universal standard. Tesco acknowledged Tyco Fire & Security's dedication to EPCglobal's mission when it signed a contract for the largest, publically announced, single-order of EPC RFID readers from ADT. Further deployment is planned to include Tesco's international business.
| 1. Symbol |
| 2. Alien |
| 3. Printronix |
Small/midsize business
Being a mid-market company with less than desirable resources to allocate to RFID by no means excuses you from Wal-Mart's RFID mandate. Symbol Technologies provided Pacific Cycle with mobile RFID readers and tags to track its bicycles throughout the supply chain. "Symbol's ability to go beyond our needs has made our experience with RFID one that we're looking forward to building on as the technology matures," said Ed Matthews, former Director IS for Pacific Cycle.
Gen 2 and Price Cuts Make Headlines into 2006
Throughout 2005, the consumer goods industry and its supporting vendor community focused heavily on the emerging Electronic Product Code (EPC) Generation 2 (Gen 2) specification as well as much-needed price cuts for RFID tags, readers and printers ' two essential factors for manufacturers looking to move to multi-site, multi-reader deployments.
Although the second generation EPC standard continues to await approval from the International Organization for Standardization, technology manufacturers hurried to build standardized products with broad availability. Just this past summer a surplus of new tools appeared on the market. Just to name a few: SAMSys Technologies' RFID UHF reader is capable of reading tags that conform to the Gen 2 standard; Alien Technology announced the Alien ALR-9800 Enterprise RFID Reader takes advantage of features included in the EPC Class I Gen 2 specification; and Symbol Technologies' XR400 RFID reader was certified for Gen 2 compliance by EPCglobal Inc."Gen 2 tags and readers becoming available will make some of the uncertainty in RFID go away," says Ed Matthews, IT Director, Wilson Sporting Goods. "There still needs to be further development on functionality in the equipment and tags as well as further price reduction to make RFID viable for a lot of companies, but it demonstrates what can be achieved in a relatively short period of time and gives good hope that RFID can work as well as be a good investment." In his previous role as Director IS for Pacific Cycle, Matthews gained extensive experience in piloting RFID solutions.
Whereas the first half of 2005 was consumed by Gen 2 announcements, the second half seemed to be flooded with news about cheaper RFID tags and readers. While Alien reduced the price of its RFID straps to 12.9 cents, Avery Dennison is offering RFID inlays at 7.9 cents. In addition, Applied Wireless Identifications (AWID) dropped reader prices 70 percent, marking the first time that a Gen 2 RFID reader had fallen under $1,000.
"When you tie them to the new products and services offered by software companies to help end-users make sense of their RFID data, and to the recent spate of EPC Gen 2 announcements, we may have a three-headed benevolent monster' that will promote demand," says Erik Michielsen, director of RFID and ubiquitous networks, ABI Research. Still volume ' more specifically, low production volumes ' remains the No. 1 inhibitor to lowering RFID hardware prices.
