Symbol, Vue Cut Item-Level RFID Deal
Written by Evan SchumanSymbol Technologies on Tuesday cut a marketing partnership with Vue Technology with the stated goal of advancing their item-level RFID sales efforts. Some industry analysts greeted the news that the pair, which have been working with BestBuy on item-level efforts, will be working together on various projects as good news.
IDTechEx’s Peter Harrop said that although the agreement may indeed be little more than a marketing news release, “they will be working on state-of-the-art efforts and the industry badly needs this to be done” by somebody. IDC’s Pete Abell offered a similar take, that it’s a good move because it reduces one area of potential fingerpointing and provides the always-popular “one-throat-to-choke for the infrastructure” for item-level RFID.
August 16th, 2006 at 4:15 am
The item-level market disappeared when the Smart Shelf concept failed 3 years ago. Smart Shelves were designed for use in constant shelf replenishment. Since then, Wal-Mart has discovered that by using current POS data to drive their replenishment programs, they can eliminate most of their Out of Stock (OOS) problems. With the exception of items that need tracking for recall purposes, Item-level tracking no longer makes sense.