Mar 07, 2006This article was originally published by RFID Update.
March 7, 2006—Last week at RFID World in Dallas, there were rumors of internal turmoil at Toronto-based RFID manufacturer SAMSys. RFID Update sought out Tom Dziersk, the 12-year-old company's recently-appointed President and CEO, to ask about those rumors and SAMSys' future.
Dziersk, who joined the company late last year to replace founder Cliff Horwitz, said that the recent changes made at the company (which included a handful of pink slips) reflect not turmoil but progress. He articulated a very clear vision of taking SAMSys from an engineering-centric company that had historically focused on technology to one that would now rise above the nuts and bolts to focus on solving business issues. This shift in focus was one made very deliberately by the SAMSys management, who set out to find a CEO that was less "tech", more "business". Dziersk (pronounced dursk) had previously worked at ClearOrbit, a provider of supply chain execution and collaborative supply management software solutions.
Dziersk said that SAMSys' new business solutions focus is evidence of a wider industry maturation. After all, he said, RFID is not about tags, readers, and frequencies, but increased efficiencies and capabilities. He said that in the reader space particularly, technology focus is of diminishing importance. Core reader technology hasn't changed much in recent years, according to Dziersk, so many of the product developments and iterations are around decreased cost and enhanced functionality. Before long, he said, "readers will cost half of what they do today, and include 200-300% the functionality."
The company's direction toward solving business problems is reflected not just in the selection of a new CEO, but also in an upcoming product release slated for May. "Our goal," said Dziersk, "is to make the RFID reader irrelevant." He described the new release as a modularized platform that will lower the cost of reader ownership by enabling easy integration of RFID readers into the enterprise network, much like PCs and printers are today seamlessly connected and disconnected to a network. "We want the user experience to be plug-and-play," said Dziersk.
All told, the rumors about SAMSys seem misconstrued, and that the company is simply entering a new phase. Dziersk noted that his changes, while perhaps dramatic, should not have surprised anyone. A new CEO is expected to offer new perspective and direction, he said. This is especially true when the company participates in an industry such as RFID, which itself is maturing from an early-adopter phase to a more mainstream one.
