IBM adds RFID capabilities to WebSphere products
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DECEMBER 16, 2004  - IBM today unveiled new software to help companies integrate radio frequency identification (RFID) capabilities into their IT systems, including a new server application that brings RFID benefits to existing IBM point-of
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SINGAPORE : A government-initiated plan to upgrade the technology used by logistics players is paying off. The plan involves getting industry players to develop tags using Radio Frequency Identification or RFID technology.
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RESEARCH TRIANGLE PARK - IBM and Cisco Systems are broadening their security alliance to offer new automatic security applications for enterprise networks.
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(InfoWorld) - On Wednesday, presenters at RFID World in Boston focused on using second-generation active and passive RFID tags to provide advanced security and authentication, as well as ways to broaden the reach of the technology. Among the buzz from attendees was how the average wireless device could soon become an RFID reader, or perhaps a related radio-capable device for Near Field Communication, a short-distance radio technology to give a mobile user easy access to all kinds of data. One attendee, Russ Lamer, said he was just starting early investigation into ways that fleet truck drivers could equip their standard cell phones to act as a kind of "speed pass" to quickly pay for fuel at a truck stop, similar to the Speedpass used at Mobil gas stations. Lamer, manager of emerging technologies at Wright Express in South Portland, Maine, said drivers might also have fuel discount coupons delivered wirelessly to their phones that could be used during fuel purchases. With some of the mobile payment technologies he is investigating, Lamer said the modern trucker may eventually be able to pay by authorizing a credit card via the cell phone. "It makes the most sense" for the cell phone to work as the RFID reader, Lamer said, adding that he is interested in finding which chips could be used to provide the functions and at what cost. Other attendees said they were dazzled by an MIT presentation last night that showed emerging technologies similar to RFID that would allow someone with diabetes to read his or her blood sugar level easily several times a day with a cell phone receiving data from a patch on the arm. Steven Georgevitch, senior manager of supply chain technology at Boeing's Integrated Defense Systems, said in an address that all the emerging wireless technologies are exciting, but warned IT managers to plan ways to prevent RF interference, especially in large companies with many wireless applications. At Boeing, there are 150,000 employees in 70 countries, and a variety of wireless technologies are used, including active and passive RFID, GPS, and two variations of wireless location services. Badges worn by employees also use proximity radio technology, in which an employee is identified by passing close to an RFID reader at entrances to buildings, Georgevitch said. With so much variety in unlicensed spectrum, Boeing has tried to manage possible RF interference with an internal organization called the Frequency Management Organization. The group studies a proposed wireless use from an employee group, conducts technical tests on it, and then approves or rejects the project, Georgevitch said. Boeing's chief technology officer also has veto rights over which projects can move forward. "RF should be treated as a scarce resource," Georgevitch advised IT managers in other organizations. "Everybody wants to use RF or plug into Bluetooth or 802.11. Collisions are inevitable."
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IBM Wednesday introduced a significant overhaul to its WebSphere J2EE application server, with new support for standards-based messaging protocols, better management features and enhancements to improve availability of applications, according to an IBM
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Infineon Technologies AG today will launch a radio-frequency identification package designed to help companies more easily connect and manage RFID hardware and software from multiple suppliers
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IBM has extended its range of radio frequency identification (RFID) offerings with a suite of services targeting industrial companies and mid-market businesses.
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CHICAGO - (BUSINESS WIRE) â-ept. 14, 2004 â -ay IBM announced a broad suite of services to speed the benefits of radio frequency identification (RFID) systems to industrial companies and mid-market businesses.
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RFID tags, the dime-sized devices that can track inventory from the factory to the store, are being embraced as one of the hottest of new technologies. -TheWashington Post
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IBM is set to begin offering a range of new services designed to bring the benefits of radio-frequency identification (RFID) systems to industrial firms and mid-size businesses.
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Adding a photosensor to an RFID tag yields a device that could track inventory, guide robots, and augment games.
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Ziff Davis - HP is working with specialists BearingPoint and OATSystems on RFID for Wal-Mart compliance and other retail implementation. Meanwhile, the major IBM competitor is building "domain knowledge" about RFID in manufacturing.
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(InfoWorld) - IBM released SOA productsÂ for integrating software applications and improving business processes, and said more customers are starting to understand the SOA concept. IBM is encouraging businesses to create discrete, "loosely coupled" processes that can be monitored individually and fine tuned for better performance. Building such an architecture can be complex and requires services from IBM, but the result should be a more nimble and competitive business, according to IBM. The first new offering is a set of software packages to help companies in specific industries -- initially health care, insurance, banking, and telecommunications -- automate processes using an SOA, or services-oriented architecture. The term refers to a way of designing IT systems so that services, such as an insurance claim approval, can be reused or modified more easily. The packages come with prebuilt templates for processes and standards common to each of the four industries. The health-care package, for example, ensures that SOA applications comply with the U.S. Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act for managing health-care data. The offerings stem fromÂ IBM's acquisition last year of Webify Solutions, which focused on the health-care and insurance industries. IBM updated those packages and created others for the two new industries, said Manoj Saxena, a vice president with IBM Global Business Services and formerly Webify's CEO. It has also translated the products into several languages. The packages, each known as a WebSphere Business Services Fabric, start from $300,000 for an unlimited number of processors and end users, IBM said. The company also released an update to WebSphere Business Monitor, which tracks the performance of business processes. "For example, if I'm an insurance company I might have a goal to process claims about chipped windshields in two hours. This tool shows me how long I am taking, and I can see that the problem is originating from my processing center in Prague, or wherever." The previous version looked primarily at people-based processes, while the update looks at content-based processes and also gives a geographic view through a connection into the Google Maps Web service. IBM's Lotus division has employed Google Maps before, but this is the first time it has been included with a WebSphere product. Pricing for WebSphere Monitor starts at $88,500 for 100 "processor value units," an IBM pricing plan that takes processor type into account. Explaining the benefits of SOA to a CEO can be a tough sell, although Saxena said IT people understand the idea a lot better than 18 months ago, and sales cycles are shorter. "It used to be very education-heavy," he said. Business people want to see where the value is in SOA. "It's a bit like where we were with the Internet in 1995," he said. "People put up Web pages and pretty catalogues but business people didn't really see the value of it until you put a shopping cart around it. We're at the same stage with SOA. We're past the project-level discussion and now it's a question of how to take it to the business level." Regulatory compliance concerns also inhibit SOA adoption. "They are quickly realizing there's this notion of rogue services, with people publishing services all over the place that people can use." Information industries like finance and insurance are moving more quickly to SOA than physical goods industries such as manufacturing. Information industries tend to use more home-grown software and less packaged software from the likes of SAPÂ and Oracle, Saxena said. Those packages aren't necessarily less flexible but customers tend to be tied to the vendors' release cycles, which affects the timing of new projects, he said. Europe has caught up considerably to the U.S. in its SOA adoption, according to Saxena. IBM also introduced services to help customers figure out where they can get the most value from integrating processes, how far along the road they are today and what tools and services they can use. IBM encourages customers to begin with small projects, and typical engagements are four to six months, Saxena said. IBM sees five levels of SOA readiness from "ad hoc" through "aware" to "world class." He estimated that most Fortune 1000 companies are between levels one and two, although a company may be more advanced in a particular area like IT systems. Wednesday's releases are the first of several SOA announcements IBM will make in the coming weeks, targeting companies at different stages of SOA development.
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(InfoWorld) - IAnywhere SolutionsÂ is adding location tracking capabilities and support for a wider range of sensor technologies in RFID Anywhere 3.0, the latest version of its sensor management software announced on Monday. The previous versions of RFID Anywhere allowed customers to collect data from RFID (radio frequency identification) tags, create reports with that data and integrate the data with other enterprise applications. With the latest version of the software platform, companies can collect more data including location and environmental information from a variety of technologies including active RFID, passive RFID, RTLS (Real Time Location System) and barcode into a single reporting and tracking system. Previously, customers using a variety of sensor and tracking mechanisms would use separate management software tools to monitor each technology, said Martyn Mallick, director of RFID and mobile solutions for iAnywhere. Passive RFID is theÂ technology used by Wal-Mart StoresÂ and other retailers to track products or pallets of products as they move through the distribution system. Active RFID chips can hold more data and can be read from a greater distance. RTLS is used primarily to track and find items, such as computers or medical equipment. RTLS sensors often communicate with Wi-Fi networks. RFID Anywhere 3.0 users can also collect environmental data. Some active RFID tags now include light, temperature and humidity sensors, Mallick said. By collecting that data along with tracking and location information, users can make better business decisions, he said. For example, a produce shipper can decide to send a load of lettuce that has been exposed to above-optimum temperatures to a local retailer where it can be bought and consumed quickly, rather than send it across the country, potentially taking days for it to reach store shelves. RFID Anywhere 3.0 is integrated with existing RTLS location and active RFID systems, collecting data from software from Ekahau, AeroScout, RF Code, and others. Collecting information from thousands of tags can produce an overwhelming amount of data, but RFID Anywhere allows users to set parameters to help control the flow. "The most important thing we recommend really to customers is that not all the data is valuable," Mallick said. "Typically 75 percent to 80 percent of data can be filtered out because it's not of value." Some data may only be useful for one or two days, after which it can be deleted. Other data doesn't actually need to be collected. For example, if a product is sitting on a shelf, its sensor doesn't need to repeatedly send data saying that it hasn't moved. The sensor reader can instead be programmed only to send data once the product moves, he said. RFID Anywhere 3.0 will become available later this month. Customers can deploy the software in as many sites as they want, paying based on how many data collection devices are connected to the network.
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IBM has issued an upgrade of its WebSphere middleware product, adding autonomic troubleshooting capabilities that autmatically detects system problems and recovers Web-based business transactions that would take days to fix manually.
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update IBM on Tuesday announced two new sets of radio frequency identification services, targeting companies in the industrial and manufacturing sectors, as well as midsize retail suppliers.
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IBM is fleshing out its On Demand computing strategy with the release later this year of Websphere 6.0, the next incarnation of its flagship application server software.