IBM and BEA make RFID moves

As consumer goods companies and other businesses feel the pressure to advance their RFID efforts from pilot to large-scale production mode, IBM and BEA Systems are among vendors standing by with new wares.

IBM last week unveiled consulting-based services designed to help midsize companies get RFID projects off the ground in as few as two or three weeks. IBM Express RFID Services costs $20,000 upfront and $750 per month. The foundation is WebSphere RFID Premises Server, which IBM hosts and manages from its newly established RFID operations center in Atlanta.

The service is geared for companies that want to comply with mandates and stick RFID labels on cases and pallets, without making a huge IT investment. Customers scan bar codes on their premises and then send the bar code data via a VPN to IBM’s site, where IBM takes on the issuing and management of electronic product code numbers. IBM also remotely orders the printing and reading of RFID labels at the customer site.

IBM’s entry-level service includes help desk functions, but doesn’t feature dock-door RFID readers or integration with a customer’s warehouse management or ERP systems.

BEA makes an acquisition

For its part, BEA Systems last week said it has agreed to buy ConnecTerra to strengthen its lineup of RFID middleware.

ConnecTerra makes infrastructure software designed to handle RFID device management, data filtering and security so users can link RFID data to their applications. BEA says it can augment ConnecTerra’s software with its own infrastructure products to help companies design and build new RFID-enabled business processes. ConnecTerra and BEA have partnered in the past to create industry-specific product bundles for pallet- and case-tracking applications.

The BEA-ConnecTerra match is the latest in a trend among vendors looking to forge partnerships and consolidate resources so they can provide integrated RFID infrastructure management tools suited for large companies, according to ABI Research.

“Acquisitions such as this are the first formal acknowledgement that it’s not worth it for these large companies to build such solutions themselves when bright, innovative, well-managed smaller RFID companies can be very strong business partners,” says Erik Michielsen, director of RFID and ubiquitous networks at ABI Research.