The following are news announcements made during the past week.
Awarepoint Doubles Revenue in 2010, Sets Stage for Expansion
Real-time location systems (RTLS) provider Awarepoint has announced that it ended 2010 with 100 percent annual growth in revenue and 91 hospital sites contracted, consisting of 45,062,013 million square feet of RTLS network coverage in U.S. hospitals and 135,265 health-care assets under management. The privately-held San Diego-based company says the results represent a 30 percent increase in contracted hospitals, a 50 percent growth in square feet of RTLS network coverage and a 58 percent rise in health-care asset tags under management by Awarepoint from 2009’s year-end figures. Additionally, revenue growth exceeded 100 percent for the third year in a row. Awarepoint provides ZigBee-based RTLS hardware, Software-as-a-Service (SaaS) based software, and maintenance, management and consulting services. Among its many customers are the Texoma Medical Center and the Our Lady of the Lake Regional Medical Center (OLOL), located in Baton Rouge, La., (see Our Lady of the Lake Boosts Efficiencies With Awarepoint’s RTLS), as well as Adventist Health, the Franciscan Missionaries of Our Lady Health System, Jackson Health System, of Miami, Fla. (see Jackson Memorial Enlists Thousands of RFID Tags to Track Assets), the Kaiser Permanente San Jose Medical Center (see San Jose Medical Center Installs ZigBee-based RTLS Across 10 Buildings), Spectrum Health Systems (see RFID News Roundup: Spectrum Health Picks Awarepoint System to Track Assets; Awarepoint Expands to Australia), the University of Mississippi Medical Center, the University of California San Diego Medical Center (see UCSD Medical Center Expands Its RFID Deployment), the University of California San Francisco Medical Center and the Walter Reed Army Medical Center (see Army Medical Center Looking to Boost Asset Awareness). Late last year, Awarepoint also announced that it had completed another round of financing worth $9 million that included current investors Cardinal Partners, Jafco Ventures and Venrock, as well as Silicon Valley Bank. This financing follows the company’s March 1, 2010, announcement of $10 million in expansion (see RFID News Roundup: Alien, Awarepoint Each Scores $10 Million in Funding). “The successful closure of this financing reflects the strength of our expanding client base, and the confidence our investors have in Awarepoint’s focus on both building a great product and ensuring long-term success of our clients,” said Jay Deady, Awarepoint’s president and CEO, in a prepared statement. “This financing is also an indication of the confidence our banking partner has in Awarepoint.” Specifically, Awarepoint indicates that it plans this year to invest in its software capabilities. According to Valerie Fritz, Awarepoint’s senior VP of marketing, the company will focus on expanding its software capabilities to support the increasing market maturity of RTLS in health care, “moving beyond asset tracking to focus on applications, analytics and dashboards that impact patient, personnel and equipment workflows and impact throughput, intervention, infection control and compliance initiatives in hospitals.” The financing will also be used to boost sales and marketing efforts, Fritz says, and to expand the company’s current account management, business improvement consulting and training teams that can help hospitals realize both the hard- and soft-dollar benefits of Awarepoint’s solutions.
RFID Aids in Rescue of Hundreds of Starving Llamas
Some 600 llamas that that were starving at a defunct animal sanctuary have been successfully rescued and are now being relocated to new homes—thanks, in part, to RFID tags and readers. On Dec. 3, 2010, representatives of the llama community were contacted regarding more than 1,000 starving animals at the Montana Large Animal Sanctuary & Rescue. Southeast Llama Rescue, Northeast Llama Rescue, Southwest Llama Rescue, the Llama Association of North America, the Lama Lifeline Committee and AniMeals.com immediately mobilized resources to evacuate the 600 llamas found at the sanctuary. Among those who have been working with Northeast Llama Rescue is Ellen Prosser, who owns Fort Lucas Farm, located in Colrain, Mass., where she and her husband raise llamas and alpacas. When the stranded animals were first discovered, Prosser says, none of the animals had any identification. “They had no names, no medical histories, and few identifiers,” she states. To help resolve this problem, Digital Angel Corp.‘s Destron Fearing subsidiary donated the necessary RFID tags and interrogators. Destron Fearing’s LifeChip Bio-Thermo microchips, each about the size of a grain of rice, contain passive 134.2 kHz transponders pre-encoded with ID numbers. The chips are inserted using single-use syringes, and the numbers can be registered in a registry or database regarding each of the tagged animals. In the case of the rescue, the chips proved to be extremely valuable tools for gathering, moving and treating the llamas. The RFID technology has been providing an efficient and accurate means to positively identify the llamas, Prosser says, “so as to track them for medical purposes, to tie a name to a particular animal, and to make sure adopters get the animal they choose down the road. The microchips are our best current technology for doing that.” The process of inserting the microchips, she adds, was quicker and less stressful than the alternative of tattooing the llamas. At this time, Destron Fearing’s LifeChip has been used in the evacuation of approximately 400 llamas, with the remaining animals currently in the process of being removed. The rescue groups rely on donations. Information on how to support their efforts can be found at Fort Lucas Farm’s Web site, or by contacting the Northeast Llama Rescue at NELR, Box 410, Middleburgh, NY, 12122.
Xerafy Survey Says Read Performance Drives RFID Decisions
Xerafy, a provider of RFID tags for metal assets, recently surveyed end users and systems integrators, who said that when it comes to performance requirements, read distance and performance mattered most in their purchasing decisions. Respondents represented a variety of industries using on-metal or in-metal RFID tags for such applications as manufacturing, warehouse, oil and gas, and aerospace; the survey was conducted from October to December 2010. Approximately 70 percent of respondents said they felt read performance controlled their choice, with most (44 percent) reporting that applications required a read distance greater than 10 feet, and 27 percent saying they desired a tag with equivalent signal performance for both metallic and non-metallic assets. The results regarding what influences purchasing decisions were somewhat surprising, Xerafy reports, in that the company assumed price to be the most important factor, whereas the survey found that the capability to embed a tag in an asset held the most influence, by 40 percent. The second highest factor was tag size. According to Xerafy, the greater need for the RFID tag to fit the application, versus just selling on price, signifies an interesting shift in the adoption of RFID technology. Because 75 percent of respondents indicated the two main markets for RFID-on-metal applications to be manufacturing and warehouse, the company notes, the choice for read performance over other features made sense. Consequently, Xerafy plans to introduce several new products designed for these key markets in 2011.
Comprion, Monetech Offer New NFC Testing Service
German test equipment provider Comprion and French Near Field Communication (NFC) consulting specialist Monetech have teamed together to provide French customers with high-tech contactless test tools and a consulting service for debugging and diagnosing errors in NFC communication. The new services include an on-site consulting session by an expert from either company, using Comprion’s monitoring tools. The service features a session of on-site debugging, checking and validation of a customer’s solution, by monitoring incoming and outgoing application-related communication, verifying data flows, timing performance and measuring signal waveforms. At the end, a test session report is provided to the customer. Using Comprion’s contactless spy tool, CLT Move, it is possible to analyze the NFC communication (including the ISO 14443 A and B, ISO 18092, and B-prime and FeliCa proprietary contactless protocols) between different contactless devices. The CLT Move tool can also be synchronized with Move 2, Comprion’s trace tool for contact-based communication. Separate and synchronized views (physical, protocol and application layers) provide an in-depth display of each protocol’s communication, the companies report. “The service is especially designed for companies who want to be sure that their NFC services work properly but don’t have the internal resources or know-how to run in-depth testing,” said Eric Laffont, Comprion’s French area sales manager, in a prepared statement.
Report on NFC Business Models Identifies Strategies for Success
A new research report published by SJB Research, located in Monmouth, England, is aimed at helping mobile network operators, banks, handset manufacturers and technology providers better understand the business models for Near-Field Communication (NFC), in order to ensure that they successfully create new revenue streams and provide consumers with the applications they want. The report, entitled “NFC Business Models,” was written by Sarah Clark, the editor of Near Field Communications World. In her report, Clark details the latest thinking from around the world regarding how to implement the fundamental building blocks required to make an NFC service a success, according to the publisher. There are five building blocks, she says: the core infrastructure that will form the backbone upon which NFC services are delivered; the business models available to the mobile network operators, banks and handset manufacturers that will provide consumers with their mobile wallets; the issues involved and strategies for success in the NFC payments market; gaining buy-in from consumers and service providers; and the launch strategies most likely to succeed. The report goes on to identify 25 key findings—among them, that the more open the infrastructure is to participation by a wide range of technology and business-to-business (B2B) service providers, for instance, the more willing businesses will be to adopt NFC technologies, and the easier it will be to bring them on board. Another finding was that ownership by one or just a few companies of the NFC infrastructure that provides the backbone of NFC services may derail adoption. “Here,” Clark writes, “the Internet provides an excellent example of how an open, standards-based infrastructure can succeed—companies like Google, Facebook and Amazon, for instance, have built multibillion-dollar global businesses on an infrastructure that no one company or group of companies owns or controls.” Other findings include the idea that payments are the most critical and most complex NFC service to deliver, but unlike other services that consumers may wish to use, payments will be an expected service—not an optional extra. What’s more, the report notes, consumers will expect to be able to use their NFC phones to make payments at a wide variety of merchants, though to date, persuading merchants to switch to the contactless terminals required to process NFC transactions has not proved easy. The “NFC Business Models” report addresses key questions currently facing the industry, including how merchants can be persuaded to adopt the contactless payments terminals required to support NFC transactions, the benefits to banks in providing NFC services, the types of pricing models that will need to be offered to service providers, and whether consumers will be willing to pay for an NFC mobile wallet. “Many companies are looking to profit from NFC,” Clark noted. “Global organizations like Apple, Google, Visa, PayPal and Facebook are all working on the technology, along with retailers, travel firms, public transport operators, financial institutions, brands, car manufacturers, security firms, central and local government, marketers and advertisers—even your local supermarket. The stakes are high and success will rely on meeting the needs of three key groups—consumers, merchants and the widest possible range of service providers.” The 170-page research report is available to purchase for £797 ($1,286). Further information, a full table of contents and online ordering facilities are available at SJB Research’s Web site.
IER Unveils New 2-D Bar-code and NFC Reader
IER, which specializes in boarding-control hardware and software, has introduced its IER 602 2-D bar-code and Near Field Communications (NFC) reader, that the company says is ideal for reading mobile devices and enabling passenger self-scanning. The IER 602 can be used to identify and track passengers, and can be deployed at all passenger touch points, including at ticket counters, security checkpoints, frequent-flyer clubs, service desks or boarding gates. The reader has a large LCD display that supports color graphics and text, and that can guide passengers to scan their own bar codes, contactless cards or mobile devices. It has built-in RFID 13.56 MHz technology, offers a read range of 4 centimeters (1.6 inches) and supports contactless communications, including the ISO 14443 A and B specification and NXP Semiconductors‘ Mifare and Sony‘s FeliCa technologies. The reader has a footprint of 48 square inches (310 square centimeters), weighs 3.3 pounds and is less than 5 inches in height—which, according to IER, makes it smaller than much of the equipment typically found at airport service counters. IER has participated in RFID implementations at airports worldwide, including those involving Air France, at France’s Nice Côte d’Azur Airport (see RFID Makes Check-in Faster for Air France Passengers), and Air New Zealand (see Air New Zealand Readies for RFID-enabled Boarding Passes).