Subject: [NEXTEL-1] Cell Phones and RFID: Two Great Tastes Together

From: [email-masked]
Date: Tue, 04 May 2004 19:45:50 -0400

Cell Phones and RFID: Two Great Tastes Together

By Johna Till Johnson
May 3, 2004

You've heard a lot recently about radio frequency identification
technologies and how they let companies track their wares more
efficiently. Most notably, Wal-Mart and the U.S. Department of
Defense (http://www.nwfusion.com/news/2004/0419dod.html) have
mandated RFID support from their suppliers, a move that's certain
to drive strong investment in the technology going forward -- at
least among manufacturing and distribution companies.
But what if you're not a manufacturer, distributor or direct supplier
to such firms? If you figured RFID wouldn't be relevant to you,
think again. RFID in conjunction with cellular technologies can
improve the productivity of a non-manufacturing workforce in
several ways.

The trick lies in envisioning RFID applications that integrate
seamlessly with your mobile infrastructure. In other words,
imagine if you didn't need a specialized RFID reader to capture
device information but could take and transmit readings via an
ordinary cell phone. How might that improve the day-to-day
productivity of you and your peers?

Take automating asset tracking. Today facilities and I.T.
departments spend an inordinate amount of time tracking
physical assets -- such as PCs, routers, even mundane things
such as cables and AB switches.

Instead of having to send techs out to remote sites to manually
count devices, what if a cell-phone-equipped office administrator
could "swipe" relevant devices and send up-to-date information
(including builds, revenue numbers and the like) back to your
centralized asset-tracking application?

Or say you've got a traveling sales force that regularly needs to
record data, such as miles traveled or customers visited. This
information might be used for CRM applications and for expense
reimbursements. Today, that salesperson has to wait to get back
to the hotel or office, log on to the appropriate application and
enter data. The wait reduces both the accuracy and timeliness
of the data -- and hence, the company's operational efficiency.

What if that same salesman could hit a few buttons on the car's
dashboard and have the information sent back to those applications
via cell phone? Think how happy he would be to arrive home after
a trip to find an accurate expense check already in the in-box.
(Not to mention how happy the sales manager is at having a
complete, up-to-date record of client contacts at any point in time.)

That's exclusive of the folks whose day-to-day job is about tracking
retail products -- soda cans in delis, ATMs in lobbies. Those folks
could obtain fast, easy up-to-the-second access to information
about how their products are displayed and supported.

You get the picture: RFID plus mobile phones is an idea whose
time has come. So how come mobile phone manufacturers are
asleep at the switch? They aren't. Not all of them, anyway Nokia
recently introduced a Mobile RFID kit for its 5140 GSM phones.

Whether or not this product takes off, it's a safe bet that something
like it will. Cell phones and RFID are just too good a combination
to ignore forever.

http://www.nwfusion.com/columnists/2004/0426johnson.html

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