RFID tagging was the theme of the day at the National
Retail Federation's annual trade show in New York, as suppliers
made a series of product and partnership
announcements.
Thanks to the enthusiasm of software suppliers and backing from
retailer Wal-Mart Stores, which last year asked its top 100
suppliers to begin RFID-tagging shipments by the start of 2005,
RFID technology is now making it into the mainstream.
Announcements at the show included:
- Microsoft's Smarter Retailing Initiative, a framework for
developing standards-based tools to ease the retail experience for
consumers, salespeople and store managers. It is backed by 20
partners, including Accenture, which has developed several
complementary tools, such as a system allowing shoppers to scan and
pay for items as they are selected instead of queuing at the
checkout.
Microsoft will continue building out its portfolio of
retail-focused software, anchored by the Windows XP Embedded
operating system it introduced in late 2001. The system is used in
more than 300,000 point-of-sale terminals worldwide. The company is
working with customers including Circuit City Stores, 7-Eleven and
Costco Wholesale.
- SAP's release of an RFID package for capturing data and
automating processes by the middle of the year. Built on the SAP
Web Application Server and incorporating several other SAP modules,
the product is now in testing with pilot customers.
At its TechEd show in September SAP used RFID chips to store
information on attendee badges. It also participates in German
retailer Metro Group's Future Store project, an initiative centred
on a shop in Germany, which serves as a testing ground for
fledgling retail technologies.
- IBM role as systems integrator for Metro Group's company-wide
RFID rollout. Beginning in November, Metro Group will have its top
100 suppliers tagging pallets for RFID tracking. IBM is overseeing
the project's strategy and implementation.
IBM also announced that Sears Roebuck will be replacing its
existing point-of-sale terminals in US stores with IBM SurePOS 740
systems, along with IBM receipt printers and flat-panel monitors.
The rollout is forecast to be finished by June 2005. Financial
terms of the deal were not disclosed.
- Sun Microsystems' plans to open an RFID testing centre in
Dallas, where Wal-Mart suppliers can bang the bugs out of their
RFID implementations. A second Sun testing facility in Scotland
will open within a month.
Sun is developing a portfolio of RFID hardware, software and
service offerings, which it expects to make widely available in the
second quarter this year. Office Depot and Benetton Group are among
the retailers building around Sun's infrastructure.
- Symbol Technologies' introduced a web-enabled self-service
kiosk, which retailers can use to offer employees or customers
on-floor access to information on product pricing, ordering and
inventory data. It also debuted the Symbol Clientele 1:1 Solution
Suite, a system allowing salespeople to use a handheld computer to
update customer profiles, review purchase histories, check product
details such as sizes and measurements, and plan appointments and
follow-up correspondence.
- Middleware supplier Tibco Software and RFID hardware maker
Alien Technology plans to release a jointly developed system for
linking business processes with RFID-generated events
mid-2004.
Stacy Cowley writes for IDG News Service