Report: Half of RFID Deployments Don't Need Middleware

This article was originally published by RFID Update.

December 30, 2004—The latest RFID survey of 669 supply chain and IT executives from Larstan Business Reports of Potomac, Maryland, yielded the following findings:

• Interestingly, half feel that their existing systems can already accommodate the anticipated flood of data coming from RFID deployments, which by some measures will be 100 to 1,000 times the amount generated today.
• Two-thirds cite retailer mandates as the reason for their RFID projects.
• 60% believe in RFID's promise of boosting efficiency and reducing labor.
• Half believe that RFID standards and consequent interoperability are critical to a successful supply chain transformation; in the transportation and logistics vertical, this feeling was held even more strongly, at 69%.
• 90% argue that a foreseeable "timely and substantial" return-on-investment is necessary before embarking on RFID deployments.

The first take-away from this report seems to be that the need for middleware has been overstated. Whether this is true remains to be seen, and will probably only be determined when considerably more implementations graduate from simple slap-and-ship to more integrated and comprehensive systems. The second observation is that while suppliers do believe in RFID's theoretical potential, they remain wary of drinking the Kool-Aid. Despite retailers' and vendors' efforts to sell a larger and longer-term vision, many suppliers still insist that a quantifiable, near-term ROI is the only defensible justification of RFID.

Read the article at Yahoo! Finance