Wal-Mart RFID Deadline Won't Be Met

Online staff -- Electronic News, 11/19/2004

Wal-Mart may be big, but its influence isn't the end-all, be-all for RFID.

According to a recent report from ABI Research, while much has been made of the looming Jan. 1, 2005 deadline for RFID implementation by Wal-Mart's top 100 suppliers, the majority of them simply won't get there in time.

But, says Erik Michielsen, ABI Research's director of RFID and ubiquitous technologies, the fact that only around 30 percent of the Wal-Mart's top 100 suppliers will have done full-scale RFID implementations by January 1 isn't the issue. What the lagging 70 percent do over the course of 2005 and why they have been so halfhearted in their compliance efforts so far, is what's important.

"Wal-Mart didn't expect this battle to be won by January first, 2005," Michielsen said in a statement. "What it did was create an incentive structure that pushed its partners in the market to better understand the technology while standards were being developed and innovation was taking place. Wal-Mart's goal is to get companies to integrate this technology into their changing business processes."

Cost has been stated as a reason for holding off RFID, but the analyst bucks that excuse. "I don't think that's the real reason. The truth is that there haven't been reputable integrators in the market," Michielsen added. "Only now are we seeing Sun Microsystems, HP, IBM, Oracle, SAP and Microsoft getting involved at the product and personnel level."

2005, ABI Research believes, will become the year of the RF integrator.