Q. How does RFID fit into Cisco?
A. If you look at the value chain of RFID…The first step is you have these tags, whether they’re active or passive, which are being read by some form of reader. Then these readers, through the network, or ‘cloud,’ have to communicate through middleware into the back-office applications, such as ERPs and merchandising systems or inventory management systems and so on.
Cisco’s interest begins downstream of the readers. How do these reader devices sit, connect and behave on the network and how do we optimize their use is where Cisco does play a role, can play a role and aspires to play a role.
Q. What types of RFID technology did Cisco have prior to the joint go-to-market partnership with WhereNet, announced late last month?
A. First and foremost, we are very interested in that cloud. We are a provider of the IP network. Then we have products such as our own wireless location services as well as our application orientated networking, AON, product, which basically is an XML router. You can do aggregation, filtration and summation of data reads at the edges of the networking using the AON platform.
Q. How will Cisco incorporate WhereNet’s active RFID technology into its existing products?
A. Our own location services…predominantly [are for] inside the carpeted areas, indoors. Now with WhereNet’s unique set of technologies and capabilities, this becomes both an indoor and outdoor type of location service, which you can apply against applications like end-point asset tracking.
Basically it provides a single, integrated wireless infrastructure for a range of applications from real time location to messaging, telemetrics and pretty much all 802.11 applications. What’s in it for the customer is constant on-demand information about valuable assets in the supply chain, their physical location and status.
Q. How will Cisco compete against more entrenched RFID players?
A. Cisco’s role here is that cloud, the network which connects the value chain together from the readers reading data to ERPs being updated based on the collected data. What we are focused on is the more optimum use of the network and networking assets so that our customers can develop more value out of their RFID applications.
RFID has been around since the ’60s. The novelty of the technology is twofold. One is the networked RFID: When I sneeze on one end of the value chain you are able to make Kleenex on the other side.
Second, this intelligence is scattered throughout the network. Whereas in the old computing format…all of the intelligence always resided in the central server, a central repository. It is no longer the case. Today the intelligence is distributed across the network from the edge to the core and, therefore, trying to make sense of this data in real time anywhere on this network — in the warehouse, in the store, at the point of purchase, which is the edge of the network — is what we do and what we do best. We are uniquely qualified. Uniquely qualified.
Q. Overall, how would you characterize the adoption of RFID here in the US and elsewhere?
A. If I may, I’ll now switch to wearing my EPCglobal board member hat. People initially thought the sweet spot of adoption would be retail and consumer packaged goods. The great news here is the adoption is across industries.
What we are less encouraged with is the rate of adoption, which is slower than what we had hoped for. And there are many reasons for that initially, ranging from the prices of the tags being very high to, secondly, people not understanding the physics between the RFID readers and tags. Third, the lack of skill sets in RFID – this is three or four years ago – all the way to there were not enough sufficient return-on-investment case studies published.
Now, in 2007, a lot of those barriers have been removed. But because of these initial barriers, the rate of growth in adoption has been less than hoped for.
Q. How much less?
A. It’s hard to quantify. But now it’s catching up and a lot of pilots are moving to deployment. We wish there were more pilots but a lot of the pilots are moving into full deployment, which means people believe in it and have figured out the physics.
Q. Do you expect greater RFID traction in the US or in Europe?
A. One measure for this is we have memberships, companies that pay to be member of EPCglobal. The largest membership body is in the US without a doubt, followed by Europe and then followed by Asia. As such, the US has been a sweet spot driving this adoption, but all the companies in the US do business with companies in Europe and Asia Pacific. A lot of the manufacturing takes place in Asia Pacific. So, if we’re going to realize the full benefit of RFID…companies across the value chain, from manufacturers in Asia to retailers in the US, have to adopt.
Moazami earned a master’s degree from Stanford University. Before joining Cisco IBSG, he was a VP at Kurt Salmon Associates, in charge of its global e-business practice. Prior to KSA, Moazami founded and oversaw the growth of IT software and consulting firm Stanford Business Systems, which KSA acquired in 1995. He also sits on the advisory board of Coca-Cola and Cisco India. He also chairs the Cisco RFID steering committee responsible for developing the company’s RFID product roadmap and go-to-market strategies.
