IBM expands RFID unit; tackles middleware

The company's new Sensor and Actuator Solutions division - launched yesterday as part of its Pervasive Computing division - will take some of company's custom sensor solutions and develop them into off-the-shelf products.

This division is one of the fastest growing at IBM, expanding by 36 per cent last year and generating more than $2.4 billion in revenue. IBM said it sees the new investment as "a strategic investment in a high-growth, emerging business opportunity."​

The company known as Big Blue said that it intends to develop a broad range of industry-specific products and services, and the pharmaceutical industry is likely to be an early beneficiary of this effort.

IBM already has a dedicated life sciences division providing IT technology for the drug industry, and the latter sector is seen as receptive to the adoption of RFID, as it makes relatively high-priced packaged goods that are prone to counterfeiting and diversion. And as it routinely ships products across great distances, the track and trace capabilities of RFID are appealing.

One of the first projects to be tackled by the group is the development and launch of WebSphere 'middleware', used to manage the data read from RFID tags. The new offering will be used to read different types of RFID readers - it can be embedded in different types of controllers to collect data from various RFID readers and tags - and to manage RFID data. It is due for launch in the fourth quarter of this year.

The goal is in time to offer complete systems that can provide real-time monitoring and control of the complete shipping process. Users should be able to pinpoint the exact location of goods at any stage of the journey from central warehouses to retailers' shelves.

Retailers and other businesses are expected to integrate RFID into their infrastructure bit by bit, rather all than in one go. This means that products that easily integrate with existing systems are essential. IBM is already supplying targeted middleware to a number of industries, and recently announced its intention to start building in RFID capabilities.

Earlier this year, IBM launched its WebSphere Product Centre. This is a product management middleware that keeps track of the many different attributes of a particular product, everything from the colour of its packaging to the standard weight to instructions for storage. And earlier this month unveiled a suite of simple, low cost RFID services targeted toward smaller enterprises and vertical sectors.

In essence, RFID technology is based on a relatively simple concept. It consists of two elements that communicate through radio transmission - a tag and a reader. The tag contains a small chip and an antenna and can be placed on any object. The information on the tag, such as an identification number, can be transmitted to an RFID reader over a distance of a few metres.

Pharmaceutical companies have been using RFID technology for years in niche applications such as tracking lab samples, and recently have begun examining the potential benefits of using RFID to track finished products. This examination has been accelerated by the decision by US retailer Wal-Mart to require its top 100 suppliers to use RFID-tagging early next year.

But the drug industry is leading the way with this effort, and is already using RFID to monitor the supply to Wal-Mart pharmacies of controlled drugs with the potential for abuse.

HP eyes middleware too​

Meanwhile, Hewlett-Packard is teaming up with OATSystems, a middleware provider, and BearingPoint, a business consulting and system integration firm, to launch two RFID platforms. The first is geared toward companies across industries implementing RFID, the second toward retailers to help them monitor and collect customer-buying patterns to better anticipate consumer demand.

RFID/IS (Industrial Strength) is claimed to fit the needs of the automotive, consumer packaged-goods, pharmaceutical, consumer electronics, high-tech, and retail customers. It combines an RFID framework, systems management, and consulting and integration services into a single platform.

OATSystems' OAT Foundation Suite offers software with four layers - RFID system of record, business-context layer, electronic product code (EPC) number management, and RFID middleware - to run with HP's RFID infrastructure.

BearingPoint has been brought on board to tap into its expertise in the retail industry, said HP.

The company has been involved in RFID for more than two years, and it estimates spending upwards of $150 million on the technology during the next five. It formed its RFID Core Team 18 years ago and has 28 full-time employees working on the team.