GenuOne Pulls Out of RFID Market

May 3, 2005—Boston-based software firm GenuOne has announced it is no longer selling its TraceGuard RFID data-integration and product-authentication software and is "withdrawing from the RFID marketplace." Jeffrey Unger, GenuOne CEO, says that the RFID application software market is too weak to allow GenuOne to continue to sell and contribute resources toward its RFID products.

"We didn't see the RFID software application market emerging with the momentum that we thought it needed in order to sustain us," Unger told RFID Journal. He says that his 25-employee firm has also eliminated a "handful" of jobs as a result of its withdrawal from the RFID market.

Jeffrey Unger

GenuOne might reenter the RFID market in the future, according to Unger, but it's not likely to happen for another five to six years. In the meantime, Unger says, GenuOne plans on retaining its membership in EPCglobal, although the company will no longer be involved with any of the organization's action groups. "I want to keep my finger on the pulse of RFID and EPCglobal," he says, adding that GenuOne is still enthusiastic about the potential for RFID applications.

GenuOne was launched in 1999 with supply chain security software products and then entered the RFID market as an application provider in 2002. Unger says GenuOne will continue to sell its two Web-based software and services: GenuNet, which guards Web sites from online piracy, and SourceGuard, an anticounterfeiting system that uses a variety of technologies embedded into label stock, fibers, overlaminates, coatings, holograms or ink to authenticate brands and products. In a statement, the company called these product lines "profitable and rapidly growing."

In January, GenuOne announced that it had developed three industry-specific versions of its RFID software (see GenuOne Take a Vertical Focus): TraceGuard V3.0 for healthcare, TraceGuard V3.0 for consumer packaged goods and TraceGuard V3.0 for premium brands. Unger says that GenuOne will continue to provide support indefinitely to all its customers who have installed these and earlier versions of its TraceGuard software.

In February, GenuOne announced a partnership with technology-services company Unisys. Through this partnership, GenuOne would contribute its tracking and authentication software to Unisys' Guardian Framework, an RFID application for the healthcare and life sciences industries. Unger says that no customers have contracted that service and that GenuOne will no longer be working with Unisys on the project.