VDC Research has a fresh look! Come check out our new and improved Industrial Automation & Sensors blog at http://www.vdcresearch.com/News-events/ias-blog/ Continue reading

VDC Research has a fresh look! Come check out our new and improved Enterprise Mobility & Connected Devices blog at http://www.vdcresearch.com/News-events/emob-blog/ Continue reading

VDC Research has a fresh look! Come check out our new and improved IoT & Embedded Technology blog at http://www.vdcresearch.com/News-events/iot-blog/ Continue reading

VDC Research has a fresh look! Come check out our new and improved IoT & Embedded Technology blog at http://www.vdcresearch.com/News-events/iot-blog/ Continue reading

VDC Research has a fresh look! Come check out our new and improved AutoID & Data Capture blog at http://www.vdcresearch.com/News-events/autoid-blog/ Continue reading

I was intrigued by a recent article in Bloomberg Business Week that asks in its headline: Do You Really Want to Talk to Your Kitchen? This article takes a brief look at the home automation industry and how it might finally be on the verge of rapid growth. Start-ups like... Continue reading

We speak with the leaders of many incredibly interesting technology companies and innovative start-ups during the course of our work, but one company we recently encountered – Memjet – really stands out. We encourage you to check out the video on the homepage of their website (one of the best... Continue reading

We’ve been working on developing use cases to help illustrate our vision for how deeply M2M technology and connectivity are going to infiltrate our world in the coming years. Sure, we’ve all heard plenty about the connected car, the connected factory, the connected shopper. A while back we encountered Brother’s... Continue reading

The day is coming when our cars, shoes, bicycles, and even the floor are all going to be streaming, pinging, uploading, downloading and otherwise communicating with networks and servers to enable all types of cool things. You’re going to love having the ability to customize the look and feel of... Continue reading

Each month, we will be posting a brief recap of our posts to give our readers a quick guide to what we've covered. Each post will be categorized by AutoID technology (RFID, NFC, Barcode or Other). Check back here in the last week of each month to see what you've missed! (Read the full post by clicking on the title) NFC Secure Element Issue No SIM-ple Matter: Key Questions Surface at London Underground AutoID Technology Focus: NFC SIM-based secure elements (SEs) do not meet the performance requirements for applications—such as transportation ticketing—where customer throughput is a key metric. Well, this... Continue reading

Starting this month, we will be posting a brief recap of our posts to give our readers a quick guide to what we've covered. Each post will be categorized by AutoID technology (RFID, NFC, Barcode or Other). Check back here in the last week of each month to see what you've missed! (Read the full post by clicking on the title) The New Balance Experience Store in Boston Runs Away with RFID AutoID Technology Focus: RFID The opening of New Balance’s newest store in Boston, The New Balance Experience Store, coincided with the April running of the Boston Marathon. The... Continue reading

We wanted to let you know about an important new annual research program we are launching called The Voice of the Customer Series: Bringing Mobility to Enterprise Applications. The series, which is based on extensive primary research of enterprises’ existing and planned behavior, will provide you with the information you need to help ensure you are making the best decisions possible in every aspect of your mobile application business strategy. We’ve designed this program to help senior IT and line of business executives responsible for mobilizing enterprise applications as well as consultants and systems integrators responsible for advising and/or implementing... Continue reading

We wanted to let you know about an important new annual research program we are launching called The Voice of the Customer Series: Security & The Internet of Things. The series, which is based on extensive primary research of engineering organizations, solution vendors, and enterprise/IT and consumer behavior, will provide you with the information you need to formulate and implement a best-in-class security strategy. We’ve designed this program to help senior OEM engineering managers responsible for product development and deployments and IT managers coordinating M2M and enterprise-to-device connectivity. This service will help them understand how organizations are approaching the big... Continue reading

We wanted to let you know about an important new annual research program we are launching called The Voice of the Customer Series: Rich Media & Big Data in Embedded Systems. The series, which is based on extensive primary research of embedded vendors and intelligent system OEMs, will provide you with the information you need to formulate and implement a best-in-class strategy for addressing the issues around and opportunities arising from rich media content and big data. We’ve designed the program to help engineering managers at large OEMs and the embedded technology vendors who provide them with critical products and... Continue reading

We wanted to let you know about an important new annual research program we are launching called The Voice of the Customer Series: Near Field Communication. The series, which is based on extensive primary research of enterprise and consumer behavior, will provide you with the information you need to help ensure you are making the best decisions possible in every aspect of your NFC business strategy. We’ve designed this program to help senior IT and line of business executives responsible for NFC project deployments as well as consultants and systems integrators responsible for advising and/or implementing NFC projects. This service... Continue reading

The March 2011 disaster that unleashed massive destruction across Japan, clearly inflicted an unconscionable toll on the citizens of the world’s third largest economy. While we monitor the country’s recovery, VDC Research Group also recently assessed the economic impact on the embedded processor supplier community through a series of executive briefings during Q2 2011. In order to assess the specific impact of this catastrophe, VDC Research Group was briefed by key suppliers across the embedded processor landscape. The product spectrum includes leading companies that design and develop central processing units (CPUs), graphics processing units (GPUs), field programmable gate arrays (FPGAs),... Continue reading

We presented a webcast on December 15th discussing the key Enterprise and Government Mobility developments in 2010 and some of our expectations for 2011. This year, we saw a faster than expected rebound across nearly all segments of the enterprise and government mobility markets. All mobile form factors experienced market growth this year; however, much of the attention was directed toward the next generation of slate/media tablets. Enterprise and government organizations have show strong initial interest in these new devices and are evaluating them for a variety of workflow uses and cases. However, issues surrounding I/O, management capabilities, OS support... Continue reading

During yesterday's webcast, we discussed retailer technology investment priorities and plans. The retail and transaction automation market is evoloving—customers are more powerful than ever before, forcing B2C operators to realign with a rapidly changing customer base and their ever-expanding scope of demands. Customer empowerment, along with cost savings and operations improvement, will drive more technology investment in 2011; this strategic requirement barely registered in our survey returns five years ago. This investment trend is the trend we believe all retail and transaction automation suppliers will need to address in the coming years. Customer empowerment is leading to rapidly growing investment... Continue reading

We presented a webcast on December 9th discussing the embedded hardware and systems market through 2010 thus far, as well as highlighted key trends we're seeing on the horizon for 2011 and beyond. This past year, the embedded markets have rebounded modestly, but we do expect the pace of growth to accelerate over the next 24-36 months as organizations across multiple verticals begin to make capital expenditures in new infrastructure and equipment. Some of the leading opportunities within the embedded hardware market to be aware of in 2011 include: Embedded Processors: With their design flexibility and performance offerings, FPGAs and... Continue reading

2010 turned out to be a tremendous year for RFID, with success stories coming from nearly every facet of the industry, but the underlying theme and a primary indicator of success for many of these stories is the increase in tag volume. More tags typically means that the solution is scaling and/or expanding, the enterprise is increasingly leveraging the system and the level of commitment to the technology is rising. Tag volumes are expected to exceed 3.7 Billion units in 2010, a jump of more than 35% over 2009, and are anticipated to approach 12.5 Billion by the end of... Continue reading

Yesterday, we presented a webcast discussing what's to come in the RFID and Barcode markets. 2010 turned out to be a banner year for both technologies. Barcode rebounded strongly from a very challenging 2009, exhibiting double-digit growth in 2010 in what is perceived to be a restocking year, although it is expected to return to historical growth rates (5-10%) rapidly. And although barcode is a mature and deeply penetrated technology, it still has significant potential as it continues to migrate from compliance applications to processes at the core of an enterprise, leveraging imaging and mobility to extend its value propositions... Continue reading

During yesterday's webcast, we provided an update on the 2010 Embedded Software and Tools market, as well as a forecast of what's to come in 2011. The recession and industry consolodation were key trends this past year, with OEM making necessary adjustments to counter decreased project budgets and enterprises vying for market share after several key acquisitions. In the coming year, we expect to see several important changes. Next generation technologies, such as multicore and operating system virtualization, will provide increased growth opportunities and will continue to be a significant focus for many suppliers. And with a forecasted market growth... Continue reading

Last week, we were happy to present a webcast for GS1/EPCglobal US on the current and future state of the RFID and Barcode industry. We specifically focused on EPC-enabled RFID markets and applications where facilitated adoption, deployment and scaling—in both new and emerging markets—is occurring due to increased innovation, commericialization and commoditization. To learn more about our insights and data on the RFID and Barcode market, click here and scroll through the slides below. RFID & Barcode: State of the Industry View more presentations from VDC Research Group. Continue reading

About a month ago, Sisvel and the RFID Consortium announced the launch of their UHF RFID patent licensing program. This program offers developers and manufacturers of UHF RFID solutions access to critical intellectual property...in a single transaction and in an economical way. Companies that participate in their "early adopter" program (which ends March 30) can lock in very attractive rates for a five year period. The consortium states that "this limited-time discount can bring the royalty rate for UHF RFID label products as little as $0.80 per one thousand units, and for UHF RFID readers, the discount brings the royalty... Continue reading

Yesterday, we presented a webcast highlighting key findings from our 2010 surveys on enterprise and government mobility end users. The adoption of next generation form factors was a significant trend, as organizations are increasingly evaluating emerging solutions to support mobility requirements. Our data indicates a shift away from currently established form factors, such as standard notebooks, toward next generation form factors, such as slate tablets and Smartphones. Opportunities for these devices span multiple segments and application classes—many with high-value customer-facing interactions that leverage the device's intuitive and graphics optimized interfaces. However, as with any new mobile form factor and device... Continue reading