RFID Middleware is Extinct. The Intelligent Sensor Network is Born.
Written By Louis Sirico
"RFID Middleware is not a long term solution". It has taken me some time to muster the nerve to publicly proclaim what many experts in the RFID industry have whispered behind closed doors for years. This should be a little less surprising as several big name providers have recently dropped out of the market. Yet, now that I have published this bold announcement, I'm left with the enormous task of backing it up and describing the evolutionary process that has taken place.
Let me start by clarifying what I mean by RFID middleware. Forrester Research defines RFID middleware as "Platforms for managing RFID data and routing it between tag readers or other auto identification devices and enterprise systems." What is unfortunate is that many RFID middleware applications were developed with a premise that the universe revolves around RFID data. These in-a-box applications were meant as quick fixes for encoding and printing a RFID label that's slapped on a pallet, and then reading tags as they pass through a portal. These applications are really Band-Aid-ware. If you have a small, pilot project fenced off in the corner of your warehouse they're fine to show a proof-of-concept, but once you enter the real world, RFID data must be integrated with all your other devices, not just routed to them. Once implementers tried to do more than a simple process, they started running into limitations that have slowed adoption of a technology that has incredible value when put into operation correctly.
In order to understand why RFID middleware is dying off, the industry must change its perception of RFID altogether. Which leads to my second bold proclamation:
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