RFID Markets and Solutions for 2008 - Sponsored Whitepaper

You know that when every industry magazine you pick up has an article on RFID—from games and entertainment, to food safety—that you're on to a big market! The RFID market continues to grow at a healthy clip with sales increasing by $1.2B and growth rates of over 23% (figure 1). The road to the ubiquitous market penetration will, like most technologies, take some hard lessons, twists and turns, with the end products in use today making the stuff we used in the beginning look antiquated—old clunkers, if you will.

If we look at the analog of so many technologies—the path from large fixed platforms to smaller form factors; and mobility is the path forward—mainframes to ipaqs, EightTrack to MP3; then RFID is no different. We have need for all sizes. Just as in the computer indus- try we have big enterprise servers, mainframes, all the way down to sub-laptops—the RFID market has grown up and now provides all these choices.

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In addition, the versatility of business applications is the real story. Globalization of the pro- duction process has created serious issues for consumers who are now demanding trace- ability (already the law in EU countries), safety, authentication, etc. And our global leverage of wireless continues unabated, creating a plethora of applications from consumer to indus- trial. Each of these market categories, though slivers in the total RFID market today, will be, in their own right, large markets tomorrow. And the customers are the ones taking those innovative steps forward.