Looking at suppliers like Manhattan Associates and Siemens, Eric Michielsen, ABI Research’s director of RFID & ubiquitous networks, suggests, “they would be better off partnering and focusing resulting free energy on services and higher end software.”
The reason is that RFID middleware is continuing to be developed by these companies, and others, and that competitors – like OATSystems, Acsis, Connecterra, Sun, and Globerange -- are shifting the focus to data analytics, business intelligence and automation networking.
Meanwhile, says Michielsen, SAP (with its Auto ID Infrastructure, part of NetWeaver) is pushing down from the enterprise application space and picking up functions traditionally done these other suppliers. Too, Sun, Connecterra, Oracle and Microsoft are moving into the field.
Based on its findings, ABI Research foresees the industry undergoing rollups, acquisitions and consolidation over the next six to nine months as needs for more focused RFID-related software and applications grows.
