Analyst firm Frost & Sullivan recently featured ThingMagic and General Manager, Tom Grant as one of its much acclaimed Movers & Shakers. In their Movers and Shakers interviews, Frost & Sullivan places the spotlight on dynamic companies and leaders recognized for achieving milestones such as launching a breakthrough technology or implementing a revolutionary vision for the future of their industries. Needless to say we are very appreciative of being asked to participate.

Frost & Sullivan’s interview with ThingMagic explores interest in our business since being acquired by Trimble.  As a division of Trimble, we are now in a better position to deliver UHF RFID products and solutions to the marketplace. As Grant said in the interview, “We have not changed post the acquisition, we have just become stronger.”

In describing what innovation means to ThingMagic, Grant explains that the most innovative solutions are those where users can interact with RFID naturally and where the technology is so integrated and transparent that it disappears.  We’ve seen this in a growing number of deployments including those by Ford Motor Company and The Disney Family Cancer Center.  We’re also seeing this begin to take hold in solutions like presence-based smart displays and kiosks where RFID is helping to create a seamless and pervasive interaction between people, the environment, and information. This innovation in content delivery and management systems is also intersecting with social networks, which makes it attractive to new markets and an expansive base of new users.

The interview also highlights ThingMagic’s vision of how RFID solutions and innovation will drive the next revolution of wireless and mobility.  We believe that the next wave of innovation and success will come from combining technologies such as active and passive RFID, GPS, Wi-Fi, and Bluetooth.  The success metric will be when the best of these technologies are combined in a hybrid product or solution that is less defined by the technology and more about what the users can accomplish with it. 

As a market, we’ve reached several important milestones.  It’s time to set our sights on the next one. We need to start thinking beyond the enabling technology and focus on the value of the data generated by RFID reads and how it can be applied to business processes.  “it is time we reshape the way we think about RFID”, says Grant.

What do you envision the next RFID milestone to look like?