VDC Research: RFID, Barcode, Retail Automation & Self-Service Market Blog

TEKLYNX International Partners with VDC Research on Recent Channel Leadership Workshops

TEKLYNX International recently conducted two live exclusive workshops for resellers, partnering
with VDC Research Group, CEO Focus and Felton Consulting for the events. The virtual workshops were designed for executive-to-executive dialogue on topics to help better position TEKLYNX’s reseller partners and their AIDC business for continued growth and success. These workshops also served as a fitting platform for TEKLYNX to unveil its new Strategic Partner Program.

Thefirst live “Channel Leadership: Fast Lane to Success” workshop was held Thursday, May 16^th and drewover 85 attendees. It was an outstanding turnout and a highly successful event.  And, due to a high level of demand, TEKLYNX invested in a second workshop that took place Wednesday, May 22^nd that netted roughly 40 attendees.    

Through the workshop attendees engaged in discussions around:

- The past, present and future of the AIDC industry – to ensure attendees’ businesses align with future AIDC customer/user trends to avoid falling behind.

- Best-in-class business strategies and processes.

- Tools to leverage to grow, track and manage resellers’ businesses.

- Tips to stay competitive and relevant through the right product mix, competencies and partners.

VDC Research was very excited to be a part of this workshop to discuss how the AIDC market has evolved in terms of product development as well as end user adoption and reseller evolution. First, VDC took a look at end user AIDC product adoption trends. We then walked attendees through reseller trends and market dynamics – past, present and future.

During the workshops, the best way for us to depict the evolution of the AIDC market was through a bell curve, starting with the early innovators and moving through to new innovation. In the book Crossing the Chasm, the author proposes a “Technology Adoption Lifecycle,” represented by a bell-shaped curve which describes the chronology of when companies adopt technologies. Our curve was an adaptation and was shaped to reflect key points in time against user demand and end user classification types spanning the innovators in the 1970s through various end user adoption groups to the new innovation or innovators being seen today and in the future. We repeated the bell curve exercise for the reseller community, highlighting key moments in the storied history of AIDC.

The importance was to communicate how end user needs have changed with their demand over time and how those needs have impacted AIDC market and solution development, especially among the reseller community.   

Attendee feedback was extremely positive and stellar questions were posed throughout the workshops.

A special thank you to Laura Henderson, General Manager at TEKLYNX, and her highly dedicated team for inviting VDC Research to participate in and contribute to both workshops.

If you were unable to attend either workshop, please contact the TEKLYNX Partner Manager at 414-837-4768 for more information.

Barcode Technology Innovations Coming to the Forefront Early in 2013 – Part 2

In Part 1, I highlighted some new product announcements from the barcode scanner vendor community and what these mean for the competitive landscape in general. Here in this post, I will focus on innovations in the barcode printer marketplace and how vendors are positioning their portfolio for success in today’s challenging global macroeconomic environment. Vendors’ research and development efforts are not limited to any one form factor, as evidenced by these product introductions.

1. Zebra Technologies: As the undisputed market leader in the barcode printer landscape, Zebra has successfully leveraged its extensive resources to build out a formidable product line that addresses current and emerging market requirements across a wide range of vertical markets and installation environments. The Company is working to expand its presence in emerging country markets with ongoing investments toward expanding its product portfolio. Zebra launched two MFi (Made For iPhone) certified printers to its already extensive mobile printer offerings – iMZ220™ and iMZ320™ – designed to support printing applications including receipts, tickets, proof of delivery and invoices. Aside from iOS, these solutions are fully capable of also supporting other leading mobile device platforms including Android™, Windows® Mobile and Blackberry OS. In VDC’s opinion, this move will help the organization maintain and also strengthen its leadership position in the portable thermal printer market while also enabling printing support for increasingly popular consumer handhelds.

2. SATO: The market leader in Asia-Pacific, SATO has a much smaller presence in other regions. With its acquisition of Argox in 2011, the Company aims to successfully penetrate the existing low-cost market opportunity in Latin America and Asia-Pacific, with a product line that effectively challenges emerging competitors such as TSC Printers. SATO America recently announced the launch of their Value Line of printers designed to fulfill application requirements of emerging and industrial markets. This includes CP-2140Z, the OS Series and the X Series of printers, capable of supporting applications in industries ranging from retail and transportation to health care and hospitality. The Value Line products are particularly aimed at price-sensitive users looking for cost-effective investment options.

3. Printronix: With a strong focus on the stationary industrial thermal barcode printer market, Printronix continues to work on building out its channel and vertical market reach with strategic alliances and new product introductions. The company’s printers support high-volume, mission critical barcode labeling applications in the industrial market. Printronix rolled out the entry-level T2N series of thermal barcode printers in the first quarter of 2013, pricing it aggressively at below $1,000 for the 203 dpi model. These printers are targeted at application environments including distribution, logistics, manufacturing, retail and health care.

2013 has got off to a very impressive start in terms of product innovation for the barcode technology market. While vendors strive to stay ahead of their competition with these new product introductions, the true winners here are the enterprise end users who are being afforded more choice and options.

Dissecting Honeywell’s Intermec Acquisition: The Potential Road Ahead

Yes, it has been a few weeks since Honeywell announced that it had signed a definitive agreement to acquire Intermec. While this continues to be subject to regulatory approvals, in this blog post I share some thoughts on how this deal may shape up and impact the barcode vendor landscape. Intermec is an active participant in two barcode technology hardware markets – Barcode Printers and Handheld Barcode Scanners. The company has a relatively small presence in the barcode scanning market, with a recent entry into the general purpose scanner space. However, in this category Intermec is up against industry behemoths including Motorola Solutions, Datalogic and Honeywell. I expect Honeywell to fully integrate this part of Intermec’s business into their own; especially given how closely aligned it is with one of Honeywell’s core AIDC competencies. Barcode printing is, however, a whole other conversation.

Intermec is one of the leading barcode printer vendors, according to our research. They rank 5th in our global vendor share chart and are considered to be among the most innovative and resilient brands in the space. Intermec has, over the past 12-18 months, introduced several new barcode printers to the market across all form factors – desktop, industrial and portable. Backed by its strong IP in the space, the organization is well-respected and has a strong presence in each of the regional markets. Is this a business that Honeywell has experience in and is entirely comfortable with? Now this is pure speculation, but I would think not. In my opinion, Intermec’s real value for Honeywell lies in its following areas of expertise – rugged mobile devices, voice technology, barcode scanners and RFID. The barcode printing and media/consumables business is quite possibly one that Honeywell would look to sell to a suitable candidate with an inherent knowledge of this fragmented market and its competitive dynamics, particularly as this doesn’t necessarily fit in with Honeywell’s growth strategy.

To determine the likely contenders vying for Intermec’s barcode printer and consumables business is challenging, but here are my two top picks:

1. ZEBRA TECHNOLOGIES – the undisputed global leader in the barcode printing market. Zebra has a long history of innovation, credibility and dominance in this space. By acquiring this part of Intermec’s broad product portfolio, the company would gain considerable share in each of the regional markets while also successfully leveraging Intermec’s significant presence in the Manufacturing and Transportation & Logistics verticals. Intermec’s strong printer consumables sales would only work to sweeten the pot.
2. SATO CORPORATION – barcode printer market leader in Asia-Pacific, with a much smaller presence in other regions. SATO is a billion-dollar AIDC organization with a business model that is a little different from that of its competitors – a much heavier contribution of consumables sales to overall revenues as opposed to hardware. SATO could significantly benefit from Intermec’s strong barcode printer sales into the Americas and Europe, growing its market presence and share in these regions via a single acquisition.

While it is all pure speculation at this time, I will certainly be keeping an ear out for any such market developments. Stay tuned.

(You can read my other post on this acquisition here)

Datalogic Reaffirms Stationary Point-of-Sale Leadership Position with Launch of Magellan 9800i

Vendors and users have long compared and contrasted the speed and performance of laser-based scanning with camera-based imaging solutions. Improved functionality, lower costs and enhanced barcode scanning speeds have all contributed to the widespread installation and integration of imagers to support several applications in varied markets. Successful penetration in high transaction volume environments has been non-existent, particularly given concerns surrounding their relative inability to maintain high throughput without compromising on features including, say, image quality. Until now.

At NRF 2013, VDC witnessed live demonstrations of two multi-plane bioptic scanner-scale products – by Motorola Solutions Inc. (MSI) and Datalogic – featuring a 100% digital, camera-based imaging data capture solution. Seeing these scanners in action highlighted all the attributes and characteristics that make them viable contenders to replace laser-based bioptic scanners in high-volume retail settings. Since we wrote about MSI’s MP6000 here, the focus of this post is going to be the Magellan 9800i, Datalogic’s latest bioptic scanner-scale.

The top-down scanner design of this imager enables attendants and cashiers to scan items at any angle without resorting to manual orientation. Like with MSI’s product, this Magellan version also provides support to a customer-facing mobile reader enabling customers to scan their mobile coupons, loyalty cards and others without disrupting the transaction and/or scanning process. Datalogic is the undisputed leader in the Stationary Point-of-Sale Scanning market with an extensive product line encompassing several different form factors – Bioptic, Presentation and Mini-Slot – while maintaining a sizable lead over the rest of its competitors in the space. The company has, over the years, fostered strong ties with leading retailers and integrator partners (including NCR and Wincor Nixdorf), pushing out its diverse scanning line to support multiple applications on the retail store-front. With the Magellan 9800i, the company is offering a migration path for its installed base to move from laser-based high-speed scanning to imaging solutions.
 
In VDC’s perspective, it will be interesting to see how the company makes use of its unique position in the industry with an extensive in-house expertise deploying imagers in industrial environments – in manufacturing and logistics verticals – to provide it with a distinct competitive advantage in retail. Will Datalogic be among the first vendors to bring “machine vision” from factory automation to retail applications?

NRF 2013: The Big Show Day 2 in Review

The VDC AutoID team’s second day at NRF was just as busy as the first, and was packed with vendor meetings, new product briefings and walking the show floor. Since our previous post focused on broader trends and observations gleaned from NRF 2013, this blog is dedicated to sharing some of the key vendor announcements and product introductions made during the event:

• NCR and PayPal announced a partnership whereby NCR will leverage PayPal’s leading cloud-based payment technology to augment the functionality of its mobile solutions targeted at hospitality enterprises, particularly restaurant/dining operators. Initially, NCR will integrate PayPal with its NCR Mobile Pay and NCR Aloha Online Ordering applications, giving customers an alternative to using credit/debit cards via enabling smartphone-based online (i.e., PayPal) payment. Besides the convenience and security benefits, PayPal will also bring social commerce features to the apps, including online check-in and reviews. Eventually, NCR also plans to integrate PayPal into its Convenience-Go (C-Go) and Endless Aisle applications. The NCR-PayPal partnership demonstrates NCR’s commitment to “making everyday transactions easier” for the consumer and merchant as well as PayPal’s leadership in the digital payment ecosystem.
• Zebra announced a new line of mobile receipt printers targeted at retailers and other B2C merchants that increasingly leverage consumer grade i-Devices (i.e., iPhone, iPad and iPod touch) as mPOS platforms. The new iMZ220 and iMZ320 are designed for easy integration with mPOS devices (including consumer grade offerings, such as those from Apple) and are among the first Link-OS-enabled products the Company plans to launch during 2013. Link-OS is a new operating system designed for use with Zebra devices which includes a SDK and core software applications that the company believes will make its hardware easier to integrate, manage and maintain from any location.
• HP debuted several new retail-focused POS products that address merchants’ increasingly strong interest in sleek, aesthetically-pleasing stationary terminals and rapidly growing demand for tablet-based mPOS solutions. For retailers seeking a more attractive alternative to clunky, traditional stationary POS terminals, HP introduced its RP7 and RP3 Retail Systems, both of which combine a sleek, modern appearance with the robust connectivity and build quality retail and hospitality operators require. HP also showed its new ElitePad along with a line of peripherals designed specifically for use with the tablet.

As usual, NRF delivered again in 2013 with many great exhibitors, vendor briefings and new product announcements. We look forward to attending next year’s edition, but until then, stay tuned to this blog for more AutoID-related news and opinions. Also be sure to listen to our upcoming NRF Quickcast, in which we will further discuss key takeaways from this year’s Big Show.

NRF 2013: The Big Show Day 1 Recap

The VDC AutoID team attended this year’s NRF in full force. With vendors representing all of the core AutoID markets, including MCET, RFID and Barcode, there were many new and innovative retail-targeted products to see relevant to each of the practice’s coverage areas. The following are a few broader observations from day 1 in the Big Apple:

• Hardware is becoming increasingly less important, and more vendors realize it. Conversely, software, and, more importantly, the functionality it enables, is the critical issue for retailers. Some hardware and solution vendors have been aware of this dynamic for some time now. Others, we think, have only recently awakened to this reality. This is more often (but not always) true in the case of large-scale, enterprise-focused vendors of retail automation and customer engagement solutions that have historically pursued differentiation via hardware ruggedness, lifecycle, and so forth rather than ease-of-use, intuitive functionality and application innovation. During conversations throughout the show, it was evident that several large-scale, traditionally hardware-focused vendors have pivoted to a broader focused strategy—one that seeks to differentiate on innovative software and functionality in addition to hardware.
• Traditional POS terminal refreshes contribute to mPOS growth. The common strategic drivers behind the recent explosion in retailers’ mPOS investment are well documented, and include improved labor utilization and efficiency, better customer service and employee empowerment. However, during our time at NRF 2013, we validated another, more pragmatic factor playing a role in mPOS’ rapid growth: stationary POS terminal refreshes. As merchants update traditional POS systems, vendors indicated that mobile terminals are usually included in their next-generation solution evaluation process. The stationary vs. mobile conversation is different for every retailer, and depends on variables including store format, sub-vertical and strategic/operational objectives, but increasingly the final solution is comprised at least in part by mPOS. While we expect this trend to continue throughout 2013 and well into the future, at the same time we believe stationary POS will remain relevant for many types of retailers as well. 
• The m.Wallet war rages on with no end in sight: The struggle to establish broader adoption in the m.Wallet and contactless payment ecosystem is as highly contested as ever, both in the context of which stakeholder(s) own the m.Wallet (a single retailer, a multi-retailer consortium, the MNOs, etc.) and in regards to enabling technology (mobile barcode, NFC, cloud-based). At this point in time, there is no certainty as to which of these entities and enabling technologies will be successful in the long term. Valid arguments exist both for and against these prospective m.Wallet owners as well as each enabling technology, and all were represented on the NRF show floor. Ultimately, consumers have the final say as to which stakeholders and enabling technologies win. Without consumers’ approval—i.e., their adoption and ongoing use—no m.Wallet or contactless payment technology will be successful in the long term. 

That concludes our recap from the first day at NRF. Stay tuned to this blog for another post highlighting some of the key vendor announcements and observations from day two.

Would You Pay Extra to Pay with NFC? Neither Would We.

Here’s a hypothetical decision: Would you pay $60 for an NFC-enabled iPhone case that enables you to pay via your smartphone—but only at ISIS partner merchants in Salt Lake City and Austin? Or, would you prefer to pay anywhere (at no additional cost) with old-fashioned cash or credit/debit cards? The choice seems absurdly clear—the vast majority (we would estimate 99%) of consumers will choose cash or card payment.

Still, despite a market opportunity that we believe is accurately summarized by the above choice, vendors with aspirations to cash in on mobile payment and NFC hype continue to introduce NFC retrofit solutions for smartphones lacking embedded NFC. Incipio is the latest entrant, having debuted its “Cashwrap” NFC-enabled iPhone 4/4S case earlier this week at CES. Incipio joins a market that seems crowded considering the nascent state of the NFC ecosystem in most regions. For example, companies such as DeviceFidelity, Flomio and Wireless Dynamics already offer (or are developing) similar accessories for both the iPhone and older Android devices. Frankly, given NFC’s weak support within enterprises and low awareness among consumers (not to mention that cash and cards are a free and highly effective alternative), we wonder: who is buying these products?

Among consumers, NFC contactless payment faces a daunting uphill battle to mainstream acceptance for at least two key reasons:

• Cash and cards’ familiarity with consumers across all demographics
• Security concerns, especially for solutions storing payment credentials on the device (as opposed to the cloud)

Keeping in mind the above factors, it is unlikely that the average consumer will spend additional money, time and effort to pay via NFC. If NFC-enabled contactless payment is to gain broader adoption, it must be absolutely frictionless to use (meaning no special cases, SIM or MicroSD card required) and offer incentives for ongoing use (for example, rewards or exclusive deals) to ensure consumers do not revert to cash or cards. Remember, cash and cards are accepted everywhere and cost the consumer nothing—in terms of money, time or effort—to use. We believe an NFC payment solution that cannot say the same has a highly challenging path to success.

Motorola Solutions Looks to Capture Retail POS Share with New Bioptic Imager

By all accounts, 2013 seems very eager to live up to its promise of being an interesting year for the barcode technology market. To start off, Motorola Solutions Inc. (MSI) made a new product announcement today – the multi-plane 100% camera-based bioptic imager/scale MP6000 – the company’s first foray into the high-volume stationary POS scanning market. What makes this particularly interesting is that up until today, Motorola was the only player from among the BIG THREE in the overall barcode scanner market (the others being Datalogic and Honeywell) with no stationary POS offering for high-throughput retail environments. We expect MSI to sell this product into grocery stores, supermarkets, hypermarkets, mass merchandisers and other such big box retailers. MSI credits its customer-side scanner to be one of its biggest competitive differentiators in an “almost exclusive” bioptic scanner market essentially governed by 3 players – Datalogic, Honeywell and NCR. Motorola’s scanner enables customers to simultaneously scan their own coupons, gift cards and loyalty cards, including those displayed on smartphone screens, with the attendant/cashier facilitating the POS checkout process.

Motorola has established a strong presence for itself in the camera-based, 2D imaging solutions market, particularly with the handheld form factor. VDC’s research covering the space indicates that the company has made significant strides in capitalizing on the explosive growth opportunities that this 2D solution configuration has to offer, especially given end users’ critical requirement to future-proof their technology investments. With continued advancements in 2D performance, Motorola considers the high transaction volume retail market to be primed for a switch from a laser- to a fully camera-based bioptic scanning solution - one that can lower operational costs and enhance data capture efficiencies.

While this is all great news for retailers and the barcode industry doing away with triopoly in this specific technology segment, it will be interesting to see how Motorola prices its newly introduced product. Although the performance of camera-based imaging solutions has improved drastically versus laser technology, pricing is not an apples-to-apples comparison given the increased complexity and high cost of underlying solution components. Will the company’s success with imaging on the handheld side translate to an equivalent achievement with the stationary form factor? This remains to be seen. In our opinion, Motorola will initially target large, Tier-1 retail chains with this product; small-and-medium sized businesses still have to wait their turn, particularly with the (anticipated) pricing structure. My expectation is that Motorola’s success mantra in this market just might be an increased focus on profitability over sales volume – due to the higher associated margins for this brand new product in its portfolio – positioning the company as a one-stop shop to fulfill their retail customers’ barcode scanning as well as future EAS and/or RFID requirements.

VDC Research's 13 AutoID Predictions for 2013: Barcode, RFID & RTLS and Mobile Customer Engagement Technologies

Happy New Year! On behalf of the AutoID team and all of VDC Research Group, we wish you all the
best in 2013.

Although 2012 has just concluded, it is never too soon to look ahead. So to start the new year off in an interesting way, the AutoID team has taken out our crystal ball once again to offer 13 predictions for the AutoID market in 2013, including Barcode, RFID & RTLS and Mobile Consumer Engagement Technologies (MCET). They are presented in no particular order.  

1. Barcode: More market aggregation ahead – Expect continued consolidation of the barcode
   hardware landscape, particularly to achieve growth across following dimensions:
   • Regional – Vendors seeking to grow their presence in emerging country markets,
     particularly targeting barcode printer and scanner vendors based out of
     Asia-Pacific.
   • Vertical – Vendors looking to increase their proliferation into high-growth industry
     verticals – particularly healthcare.
2. Barcode: Vendors will learn to “accessorize” – More barcode hardware players will actively
   look to enter the “accessories” market – developing sleds and/or sleeves to support consumer-grade device usage in enterprise environments. This is particularly relevant to vendors addressing customer-facing applications with their devices in retail, healthcare, hospitality and commercial services. 
3. Barcode: Future with mobility, not without in software market – An increasing number
   of barcode software solution providers will extend label printing support to portable devices (both purpose-built and consumer-grade) – facilitating mobile applications such as field sales, field service and direct store delivery (DSD). Today, mobile barcode label generation software penetration is in a very nascent stage, but we expect that to quickly change. Mobility IS the way forward across verticals and industries and the entire barcode value chain must and will respond accordingly.
4. Barcode: Embrace the tech-savvy consumer – Scanning with and displaying barcodes on mobile device screens will continue to grow significantly among consumers. Barcode vendors and their enterprise and retail customers must continuously adapt to this explosive trend. We predict more QSRs (quick service restaurants), convenience stores, restaurants, theme parks/ entertainment venues and other consumer-facing enterprises will invest in and deploy barcode imagers and consumer-grade mobile devices to interact with consumers (e.g., coupon redemption, payment, loyalty/rewards programs).
5. MCET: Mobile point-of-sale (mPOS) will remain the hottest technology among B2C business operators – This trend will be most prominent in retail, but increasingly in dining as well, despite the fact that enterprises often lack clear strategic objectives guiding their investment in the same. In 2013, MCET solution providers must assume leadership roles in educating their customers on technology selection, software and security, best-fit use cases for specific mobile devices/form factors and total cost of ownership (TCO).
6. MCET: NFC as a broader ecosystem will make little progress beyond incremental gains in
   shipments of NFC-enabled smartphones – Yes, this means more NFC-equipped phones in consumer hands, and limited scale pilots and tests will continue, but 2013 is not the year when the technology gains global-level traction. However, expect more TV commercials for mobile phones and mobile network operators (MNOs) to advertise NFC and its applications – and more importantly, look for more commercials to specifically mention the term “NFC” in order to engrain the technology in consumer minds.
7. MCET: Merchants’ general focus on mobility - mPOS in particular - will bring great opportunity for vendors of adjacent peripherals – POS peripheral vendors (e.g., receipt printers, barcode scanners, payment solutions) are expected to drive growth via innovative, highly-portable versions of these traditional POS extensions. These vendors will be jockeying for competitive position more aggressively in 2013, responding to burgeoning demand among retailers, restaurants, hospitality and other enterprises wanting to differentiate and augment their systems by  “going mobile” at the POS.
8. MCET: Contactless mobile payment via NFC will not explode in popularity among consumers during 2013, but consumer usage and merchant support of this application will experience strong growth – Barcodes displayed on mobile device screens and core/traditional RFID (e.g., contactless tickets, smartcards) – not NFC – will continue to enjoy broader global support for mobile payments in the foreseeablefuture. For NFC to gain ground in 2013, more NFC-enabled devices must reach consumer hands, more NFC-compatible payment terminals must be deployed and more collaboration among invested parties must occur within the NFC ecosystem (especially in terms of consumer education, transaction fee negotiations/resolution, and application development).
9. RFID & RTLS: Vendors – especially RTLS solution providers – will develop the “healthcare
   stare” – The use of RFID and RTLS is on the rise in healthcare, most notably in the US thanks to the VA’s announced $540M+ contract to track equipment and supplies at 21 of its Veteran Integrated Service Networks (VISNs).  However, the contract award to HP was not met without controversy in 2012 as IBM filed a protest to the US Government Accountability Office (GAO) and won the decision. The contract will be rebid among, at least, the six original bidders.  This spark to the market (and sizeable contract) drew a lot of attention in 2012 and we expect the RFID and RTLS frenzy to continue in healthcare in 2013. However, we caution vendors (especially RTLS providers) to not focus solely on healthcare and to seek opportunities and market development in other vertical markets where the competitive field may be less crowded.
10. RFID & RTLS: Passive UHF EPC item-level tagging (ILT) in the apparel sector will
    pick up the pace after a somewhat slow 2012 – This past year was a mild disappointment in terms of retailer deployment of RFID for ILT of apparel. For example, no major reader or printer/encoder orders were delivered, several large retailers remain behind originally announced plans (e.g., Wal-Mart, JC Penney) and some newer programs were pushed to or will start in 2013.  So what to expect in the year ahead? Even more American Apparel stores will go live with RFID (a bright spot for 2012 as well), Wal-Mart will reassess its RFID plans but remain committed, Macy’s will make its anticipated move, JC Penney has bigger worries than RFID, international retailer Zara will play a key role in increasing tag volumes and RFID EAS will become a more critical part of the ILT in apparel conversation.
11. RFID & RTLS: Embedded RFID keeps the forward momentum – At the end of 2011 we
    noted the rise of “RFID inside,” or embedded RFID, as a key trend to watch for in 2012.  We are keeping it on the list in 2013 after seeing a great deal of progress in 2012. For example, ThingMagic released a new, smaller passive UHF reader module, Xerafy continued product development for embedded RFID specialty tags (e.g., tools), ICs and chipsets from players such as Impinj, NXP, Murata and AMS decreased their footprints, Coca-Cola Freestyle dispensers with passive UHF technology inside continued deploment, RFID and NFC made their way into consumer devices such as Keurig Vue coffee brewers and Nintendo Wii (Skylanders game) and much more. With price points declining and form factors shrinking, we expect to see solutions and applications such as these expand and new innovations to be introduced in 2013.
12. RFID & RTLS: Honeywell Scanning & Mobility will get strategic on RFID – and quickly
    – after announcing its first RFID product and the acquisition of Intermec in 2012 – After some exploration of RFID while acquiring several barcode scanner and mobile computing companies over the last few years, Honeywell made some eye-catching RFID moves in 2012. They made a subtle move in introducing an RFID reader and then made a major move in announcing the acquisition of Intermec (a major RFID IP holder and RFID equipment manufacturer). We predict Honeywell will aggressively develop its RFID strategy in 2013, becoming a strong competitor in select verticals and applications that play to the combined strengths of Honeywell and Intermec. What’s next for Honeywell – RTLS in 2013 or 2014?
13. AutoID: Governments in China and the EU continue to connect with the concept of the Internet of Things (IoT) – While the US government remains largely silent, China and
    the EU actively fund research IoT projects, create policies to govern the IoT and deploy IoT technologies (including RFID, NFC and sensors). Much of the IoT activity in the US has been at the city level (e.g., smart cities) and we do not expect that to change. In looking ahead and predicting where will be the epicenter of IoT innovation, we are placing our bets on China. Simply look at what is on the list of IoT development subsidy projects from China's Ministry of Industry and Information Technology and Ministry of Finance (announced November 2012). UHF and microwave RFID chip design, product technology R&D, miniaturized intelligent sensor technology R&D, ad-hoc networking technology for wireless sensor networks, intelligent logistics and intelligent traffic are among the 14 categories of project, comprising 149 projects in total, which will receive support from the government.

I would like to extend a special thank you to Richa Gupta (VDC’s barcode analyst) and John Shuster (VDC’s MCET analyst) for their contributions to this blog.

Epson Mobilizes to Address Rapidly Growing mPOS Opportunity

Still questioning whether consumer-grade mobile POS (mPOS) devices are a short-lived trend or a here-to-stay expansion of the broader front-end technology solutions at many leading mainstream merchants? Here is another strong point in favor of the latter: Epson, the global market leader in POS receipt printers, recently announced its Mobilink P60 mobile receipt and label printer supports Bluetooth connectivity to facilitate wireless pairing with all Apple i-devices and a diversity of other Bluetooth-equipped consumer-grade devices. The Company simultaneously introduced a new software development kit (SDK) for iOS, Android and Windows operating systems that is intended to expedite the development of mPOS and label printing applications that leverage the Bluetooth-enabled Mobilink printer.

As mPOS solutions gain stronger adoption among retailers and hospitality operators—sometimes as an enterprise’s exclusive POS system—the demand for reliable, easy-to-use printing solutions that complement the mobility and empowerment mPOS provides workers is growing increasingly strong. In response, a number of POS receipt printer vendors—including Epson—have been swift to launch portable versions of their standard, stationary POS printers. These portable printers are certainly smaller than their stationary counterparts and are “mobile” in the sense that they can be easily transported. However, while smaller in relative terms, they are not ideally sized to be wearable for the average worker.

For this reason, we believe a Bluetooth-enabled printer such as Epson’s offering will­­­­ be well-received by many mPOS deploying merchants, especially those using mPOS “within the four walls,” as opposed to in field-sales or other remote applications. The deployment of Bluetooth-enabled stationary and portable printers enables mPOS-equipped associates to fulfill any printing requirements encountered during their shift while freeing them from the burden of carrying another device on their person. Furthermore, enabling on-the-go, mobile printing via shared Bluetooth-enabled (or other wirelessly accessible) devices allows enterprises to reduce printing hardware investment by eliminating the need to equip every associate with their own mobile printer. Accordingly, in the case of many mPOS deployments, we expect this approach to mobile printing will be favored both for its lower investment costs and freeing employees from carrying additional equipment.