Many companies trying to meet RFID mandates last year started small, allocating much lower budgets to the effort than the $2 to $3 million some analysts had predicted. In 2005 these companies are increasing their investment to scale up and integrate RFID into their normal operations, says a new report from ABI Research.
"We are seeing companies increase their RFID budgets three to five times this year compared to 2004," said Erik Michielsen, ABI Research's director of RFID research.
While many smaller RFID vendors were involved in these 2004 trials, ABI says that in this phase of RFID implementation, end users in its survey will more often return to their traditional technology partners for larger and more integrated solutions.
"In 2004 we saw many end-users working with smaller RFID companies," said Michielsen, "but the big-name relationships didn't come, because they weren't necessary. Now if companies are going to make a big investment in RFID tags and readers, they'll turn to the partners traditionally able to meet their needs, who can provide a global service. Many RFID companies can't do that."
According to ABI, that will be the case even if RFID is not central to these old partners' businesses, as in the cases of vendors like Avery Dennison, CCL, TI, Philips, LXE, Symbol, Zebra, and technology solution providers such as Cisco, IBM, Microsoft, Oracle, SAP and Sun. Any lack of cutting-edge knowledge will be more than offset by the comfort factor that large, familiar partners can provide, said ABI.
http://www.abiresearch.com/
