Are Your RFID Vendors in Trouble? And If So, What Can/Should You Do?

So what do green energy, software as a service (SaaS), radio frequency identification (RFID), and their offshoots and affiliates all have in common as industries or markets?

Two things, for the purposes of this particular rant.

Thing the First is that they were all predicted as recently as the end of 2008 to be some of the few areas that were likely to weather what was (apparently) seen by many (but not everyone) then as a looming but temporary economic...unpleasantness.

Thing the Second is that given the significantly more robust and sustained nature of said...unpleasantness, all three of arenas are facing significant, sustained challenges. In many cases, these challenges are life-threatening to at least some companies – and unspoken of by almost all of them, especially those not publicly traded and therefore compelled to make at least some financial disclosures.

Now, it's not lost on me that among SaaS companies, Salesforce.com is not only a market leader and publicly traded. According to its most recently disclosed financial information, while challenged, it is not in any real, imminent danger. (As I expected during the recent media mini-furor over whether or not SaaS was going to make it, or something like that.) I worry far more about the ecosystem of smaller and emerging SaaS, RFID, and related suppliers, including some of RFID's better-known names.

I especially worry when I see no recent announcements of major customer wins, or even significant pilots. I also worry when I see no announcements of strategic alliances – or see what are touted as such, but that include no laudatory statement from any senior executives from the supposed “strategic partner.”

I'm not sayin'. I'm just sayin'. (If you want to see such an announcement done right, check out Fluensee's recent BMC integration announcement -- and I'm not just saying that because I'm quoted in it.)

Green energy is not one of my core strengths, so I'll leave that to others more expert and focused than I. (I would But where SaaS and RFID are concerned, well, I'm concerned. And I'll have more to say about both Real Soon Now. Meanwhile, though, if you don't have them in place yet, craft, execute, and enforce some effective, protective, and business-driven service level agreements (SLAs) with every SaaS or RFID vendor or reseller critical to your business. And keep close tabs on the financial health of those vendors. To the extent that such tabs are possible, at least.

Fluensee Brings RFID to BMC -- a BFD! ;-)

Fluensee, one of my favorite RFID vendors, has announced integration of its AssetTrack solution with BMC Software's Remedy Asset Management Solution. The result: more automated, efficient, and effective tracking of RFID-tagged IT assets, which means greater efficiency and security for enterprise IT resources. Companies that know where their IT assets are can assign and move those assets around in response to changing business needs more effectively, inventory them more quickly, and perhaps avoid buying more of them than necessary.

In case you were wondering, Dell, HP, IBM, and other IT vendors are increasingly offering RFID-tagged server blades and other IT infrastructure components. This is precisely the kind of integration I've been blathering on about for months now, when I talk about RFID's real business value as a source of real-time, fully integrated data. In this case, the data's about IT assets, but once the integration floodgates open, it doesn't take a rocket scientist, or even a semi-cranky industry analyst, to see more potential. And the more things I can manage more effectively from the same tool or platform, the more business value I get out of that investment as well.

This isn't the first integration of RFID with IT asset or infrastructure management, and if the vendor community is anywhere near as smart as I dare hope, it won't be the last. It's an important one, largely because of the fairly large marketplace footprint of the Remedy family of products. But with RFID, IT asset management, and IT infrastructure management all evolving rapidly, and increasingly being augmented by software as a service (SaaS) alternatives, the game will continue to change, and will definitely be worth continued watching -- and not just by me, BMC, and Fluensee...