The price of RFID

RFID tags are still expensive, but prices are dropping, and in a year or two expect to see these tags in action at your local superstore

RFID tags are still expensive. For the technology to become pervasive, the prices will have to come down to as low as Rs 5 to 10 per tag. That said, Indian companies aren’t letting it deter them from piloting the technology, says Sushma Naik as she talks to organisations in fields as diverse as apparel manufacturing and brewing. We know about RFID’s much-ballyhooed benefits—improved production efficiencies, asset utilisation, forecasting and inventory accuracy, all stemming from its ability to pinpoint the location and status of products as they move through the supply chain. Inventories can be updated in a few seconds by tapping into this technology, and it can release people who would otherwise be involved in scanning merchandise.

ATMs are the big success story when it comes to anywhere banking. While the Net can offer greater convenience for some transactions, ATMs are far more ubiquitous in India, and they dispense cash. The Indian ATM outsourcing scene resembles the American banking scenario of the 1980s when ATMs were growing at a frenzied pace and ATM outsourcing broke the traditional mould of doing business. ATM growth has also been fuelled by the fact that banks are comfortable with the prospect of handing this function over to third parties. The Reserve Bank of India has given the go-ahead to ATM outsourcing, and initiatives like a single switch for banks, i.e. the National Financial Switch, will only fuel this phenomenon to greater heights. Shivani Shinde reports.

As Gigabit and 10G Ethernet networks start making inroads, the need for speed, ease of handling future applications and reasonable cost are the factors that should drive Cat7 adoption—but there are issues. Cat7’s bulky and it’s not been ratified.

It’s a candidates’ market out there, and they have a major say in the recruitment process. The urge to join an IT services company is slowly but surely giving way to finding the right opportunity in an IT product company—be it an MNC or an Indian firm, observes Vinutha V.

sandeep@expresscomputeronline.com