October 09, 2006
RFID Middleware Market: Big Opportunites Ahead
The market for the business software needed to manage RFID implementations is expected to grow significantly this decade. According to a Venture Development study, last year's market was US$24M, and should reach about $192M in 2010. That's an increase of seven times, an approximate 50% compounded annual growth rate.
Who is expected to dominate in the market? Giants like Cisco, IBM, WebMethods, and possibly NCR. What's more, IBM and WebMethods are expected to be acquiring a number of RFID software start-up companies.
Fact is, if you're in the software business and are forward thinking, there are numerous industries that use RFID and can all benefit from custom middleware to manage the data collection and management. There's also the analysis and reporting afterwards, which is a different category. And the middleware functional parameters for each industry are already inherently defined by their needs. If you know where to look, the answers are available.
So opportunities will abound in the near future, if you get started now in your software design. Pick one of the hot industries for RFID implementation, study functionality requirements, and start designing code and testing your systems. While I'm not going to pretend to give you a coding lesson, the biggest hurdle in designing new RFID middleware, besides the lack of standards, will be understanding all of the "exception conditions" that will arise from collecting data in real time. If you get this sorted out, and have useful software, chances are that you may just get a courtship letter from IBM or others. But the competition will be fierce. See the SDA India article linked below for a breakdown.
[sources: The Register UK, SDA India]
--
Did you enjoy this post?
« Inspiration For California RFID Senate Bill 768 | Main | Offshoring Affecting Australian RFID Industry »
