RFID News Roundup

SAP Certifies SupplyScape's E-Pedigree App
SupplyScape, a provider of electronic-pedigree software for the pharmaceutical industry, says that enterprise-software provider SAP has certified SupplyScape's E-Pedigree application as "Powered by NetWeaver." This means pharmaceutical companies using the mySAP enterprise-resource planning (ERP) and Auto-ID Infrastructure (AII) software platforms can be confident in their ability to integrate the SupplyScape E-Pedigree application into those platforms. By integrating the SupplyScape E-Pedigree solution with SAP's AII, companies deploying RFID or other serialization technology can combine serialized product information with enterprise business processes. The FDA has identified RFID as an effective tool for authenticating drug products to deter counterfeit drugs into the pharmaceutical supply chain. SupplyScape's E-Pedigree application can process serialized data from RFID tags or other authenticators, such as serialized bar codes.

Atmel, Melexis Partner on Payments, ID Apps
Chipmaker Atmel and transceiver manufacturer Melexis Microelectronic Integrated Systems report that they are working together on a new endeavor. The two companies are proposing innovative solutions based on high-frequency (13.56 MHz) RFID interrogators and devices compliant with the near-field communication (NFC) specification for RFID-enabled electronic payments and data-exchange devices. The partners plan to market these solutions for such applications as verifying electronic passports and other identity documents, RFID-enabled payments and peer-to-peer information exchange between NFC devices. This week, the two firms demonstrated a passport designed for reading electronic passports at the Cartes 2006 conference in Paris. They also demonstrated an NFC application. The demos featured Atmel's AT90USB AVR microcontroller and the Melexis MLX90131 RFID transceiver.

Mercury4 Gets Green Light in So. Korea
RFID hardware company ThingMagic says South Korea's Ministry of Information and Communications (MIC) has certified that the ThingMagic Mercury4 RFID reader meets the country's regulatory requirements for operation of RFID goods and can be sold in that country. The interrogator complies with EPCglobal's Gen 2 standard. ThingMagic will sell the device through a network of resellers in South Korea, such as CIT, M/A-COM (part of Tyco Electronics), Sontec, and Ubi-Tech. ThingMagic says it wanted to ensure that its Mercury4 interrogator was certified for use in South Korea because of the country's burgeoning RFID market and many end users, including Korean airlines and high-security government offices and casinos.

Collaborative RFID Approach Can Hasten ROI, Says Aberdeen
Firms that spread the design and implementation of RFID systems between their business line management and information technology enjoy a 26 percent shorter time to positive ROI, on average, than those taking a less collaborative approach, says a new report from the Aberdeen Group, a market research firm. Aberdeen's report says firms that build in-house RFID expertise realize a return in 35 percent less time than those that out-source the management of the entire project. Aberdeen conducted research for the 30-page report, entitled "ROI in RFID, a Benchmark Report," by surveying business line managers, IT executives and corporate-application developers. The company questioned these professionals about their current plans for RFID, the degree to which a return on investment impacted their companies' decisions on RFID, the benefits they have realized from the technology and what tools they used to measure ROI. This study found that, on average, more than half of the early RFID adopters—those that have been using the technology for more than five years—now earn greater than $5 billion in annual revenue and have invested an average of $1.5 million in the technology, which is about three times the average. Of these companies, 85 percent achieved an ROI within the first five years of deployment. Examining all the companies that have successfully deployed the technology, it said, took at least 18 months to realize an ROI—about four years at the most—the average being 30 months. Underwritten by chipmaker Intelleflex, RFID solutions provider ADT and asset-tracking solution vendor TrenStar, the report is available on the Aberdeen Web site until the end of the year. After that, the cost of the document will be $399.