Where Am I? Meet Who Am I? : Trimble Acquires ThingMagic

With relatively little activity in the RFID space these days, it’s interesting to see the latest move by GPS leader Trimble Navigation to acquire ThingMagic. As one of the early movers to recognize the value in RFID for automated identification, ThingMagic has it’s fingerprints in standards and vision of most RFID players. They recognized early on that the future “Internet of Things” can be best realized when the these things can communicate with dynamic, software-based, protocols. I love their vision of “adding magic to everyday objects”.

Trimble clearly recognizes the value of this medium and combination of location aware services with near field communication technologies. Leverage can come from new innovations but also with growth to new markets under a lower overhead model, economies of scale, and the capital that Trimble brings to be a market leader.

Is this a beginning of a bigger trend of acquisitions for RFID or the M2M market? Will Trimble make moves towards other communication players – or perhaps to the sensor market? Now that we know where you are, and who you are – perhaps the next move is “how good you are“.

Who knows – but it is good to see strategic moves that give us pause for consideration.

Press Release – Click Here.

Coming Soon: HealthCamp, mHealth, and SDSIC Networking Conferences

Coming in the next two weeks:

• September 7th: HealthCamp San Diego
• September 7th: 2nd mHealth Networking Conference. 
• September 16th: SDSIC discusses “Electronic Medical Records Integration with Wired and Wireless Devices “

STAR*West comes to San Diego

Great event for those who haven’t attended before.  The premier SQE software quality event, “Software Testing Analysis and Review” (STAR-West),  comes to San Diego this year on September 26.  Let me know if you’ll be attending!  I’m hoping to make it if I can – and write about some of the conference hightlights.  See www.swq.com/starwest for more details.

Opportunities and Challenges in Healthcare Reform

Excellent event yesterday at CommNexus – “What does Healthcare Reform Mean to San Diego Businesses?”   Hosted at Qualcomm, the event featured a panel of leaders from West Wireless Health Institute, Sharp Healthcare, CareFusion, and Qualcomm. So what are the characteristics of these opportunities? 

• Innovations that deliver high quality at a lower cost
• Products which engage patients more in their own care, at home

However, according to David Schlotterbeck (CEO: CareFusion), the quantity of technical innovations is not the issue. The questions are “who will pay?” and ultimately, “will patients have better outcomes?”  With hundreds of millions already invested in great solutions the winners will be those solutions which disrupt the delivery model. CareFusion has a primary focus on taking the cost out of healthcare by putting a top priority on Operational Excellence. I like their focus: do it right the first time!  

The downside? What about consumers?  Unanimous feedback from the panel that we’re going to see significant increase in our own healthcare costs at least near term. Gains are in the long-term when we could potentially see a better cost model and improved outcomes for our children.

New NFC chip shows promise for wireless health care diagnostics.

A recently announced, new multi-protocol chip from GENTAG allegedly will further open consumer markets for wireless sensors by supporting NFC and ISO 15693.  Inclusion of these chips in handsets would then allow cell phones to be used for contactless NFC payment transactions as well as healthcare sensor solutions like wireless pedometers, thermometers, and more.  Of course, applications are required before consumers can get very excited.

While it is encouraging to see this innovation, I have yet to see a strong commitment from the traditional handset manufacturers to really invest in additional wireless protocols beyond Bluetooth (and potentially Bluetooth Low Energy BLE).  That said, however, if it can be used for payments – there is hope.  Innovation leader, Apple, recently announced interest in an NFC-enabled iPhone Application.  

Read more:

NXP’s new NFC chips now compatible with GENTAG’s RFID platform

Apple shows interest in NFC product info app

Breakout Year for M2M M&A?

M2M Magazine has provided a tracking report on mergers and acquisitions in the Machine to Machine space with data going back to 2001.  As of today it appears the report has not been updated since December 2009, a review of the data begs a question.   Is the M&A activity for this space on the decline or is there pent-up demand ready for a breakout year?  Considering the trajectory we were on in 2008 and the likely economic drag from 2009, I think we’ll see a lot more activity in the coming months and years.  What do you think?

Chart Summary by F.W.Hesse

Data Source: M2M Magazine List of Acquisitions

Consequences of Servant Leadership

Servant Leaders.  Do you know folks that fit that model?  Do you?   Or do you have a preference or style that is more hierarchical, top-down?   As you think about your company or folks you know that have enjoyed great success in their roles at various companies – how often does the leadership style come into your mind?   After decades of dialog about the positive outcomes created in organizations who really get it, clearly not everyone agrees. 

I ask this because I was speaking about this topic a few weeks ago with a friend.  We were discussing, perhaps clarifying in our own minds, the consequences of servant leadership.  A stretch to say “negative consequences” because that could be seen as self-serving.   But let’s face it – isn’t there a potential cost to individuals when they are focused on the greater good? 

You’re passionate about being great at your role, at success for your company.  You listen, teach, collaborate, build community, share best practices, and involve everyone in your ecosystem.  You are focused on the overall system.  Harmony.   Growth.   Long term success… 

Then what happens?  Do you run into a steamroller?   Is there objection from others who feel that command and control is the only successful leadership model?     Are some companies a better fit?  Some roles?   In thinking about your future, how does this mental challenge influence your decisions about directions to go? 

So this note is really just to provoke some thought and perhaps generate response.      I know there are books and blogs and entire organizations focused on this.   I’m just curious to know how these questions  have an impact (if at all) on your personal career choices.

Alien Technologies – New Funding and New Reader

Alien seems to be making some interesting moves lately.   I had pretty much thought they went on to other pastures, but it appears that the company has managed to be convincing that RFID is on a healthy path to recovery.  With “all time record volume” for IC and Inlay sales – Alien has closed on nearly $11 million in new financing from several existing investors. 

Unclear what they will be doing with this money – but Alien is hosting its Global Alien User and Partner conference this week in Dayton, OH.  Perhaps product announcements will clarify.  On Tuesday, the company announced their next generation ultra high performance reader – the ALR-9900 – which promises “significant performance and feature improvements” which result in dramatically improved sensitivity.   Sounds good.

Is Alien back on the road to success?  What’s happening up in Morgan Hill?

 

Opportunities in Machine-to-Machine and Location Based Services

On Tuesday I attended a breakfast session called “M2M & LBS Ecosystem – Wireless Devices, Connectivity, & Smart Services” as part of the Wireless SIG at CommNexus. With great anticipation I wanted to hear about the latest views on opportunities, solutions, breadth, and market for M2M and LBS technologies. What is that? Generally along the following lines:

Machine to Machine (M2M) refers to data communications between machines or sometimes people and machines. For the mobile phone world it means Mobile-to-Mobile. While often referring to telematics (making use of established public wireless networks), in a pure sense it simply is two devices connected over some wireless protocol.

A location-based service (LBS) provides a software application, most often on a mobile device, with information about where the device is located. These services can provide valuable benefits to end users and systems.

The presenters did a nice job to share their experiences in building connected service solutions and companies. It is great to see how established companies and new companies are partnering to create innovative new solutions and markets.

Yet much of the content from Tuesday’s session centered around the predicament faced by business ventures in this space as they partner with carriers like Sprint and Verizon. The partners are necessary participants, yet can be overbearing partners.  Missing was much discussion about the Smart Grid, LBS and other wireless protocols.

And as I listened to the presenters and following Q&A, it became obvious that F-U-D remains. I sensed an unusual quiet and reserved tone from an audience (125 in attendance) that would normally have loads of questions. Some of my reflections – listed below.

Areas of agreement:

• Operators / Carriers of public networks enjoy huge leverage and control over deployment for any devices expected to transmit data in that manner. Partnerships with these carriers will be the deal makers and breakers.
• The coming market for the “Internet of Things” is huge. 6 billion people, 50 billion devices at least.
• Centralized “360 degree” management has the potential to dwarf today’s mobile device concerns. IT administrators simply concerned with laptop management will be in for a giant surprise.
• The customer support model for these devices will create enormous business challenges and opportunities.
• Standards are not complete.

Areas of debate:

• “Right Problem, Wrong Hammer”. Why pay margin to a mobile carrier for bits of data communicated on a private network. For example: Bluetooth, ZigBee, and RFID can potentially capture vast data feeds that never need to jump over public networks.
• Scalability of deployment .
• What is the most effective supply chain.
• Clear business opportunities with actual ROI.

Nevertheless, I left the meeting with renewed optimism about the near-term and long-term business potential in the broad M2M ecosystem. At a minimum, it appears that strategic consulting opportunities exist to help companies choose platforms, technologies, and partners. At a maximum, we have enormous opportunities to improve the outcomes for our wellbeing, enjoyment, and satisfaction in life.   Let’s do something great with it!

Advances in Bluetooth Wireless – Get Ready!

Yesterday I went to a CommNexus San Diego session titled “Evolution of Bluetooth Wireless Technology – Where Will Bluetooth Go Next?” Our Keynote Speaker was Nick Hunn – Vice Chairman of the Mobile Data Association. A good majority of his slides are available via his blog and Slideshare – linked below. Great job Nick!! Here are a few of my thoughs and summary points.

As a prior entrepreneur in the RFID market, I found it fascinating to hear about how the new Bluetooth Low Energy standard has so much promise to advance the (previously hyped) “Internet of Things”. As opposed to RFID, this technology is in fact designed for Internet connected devices, and the primary gateway for this connection will be provided by a consumer device that nearly everyone has – the mobile phone. Gotta love it.

The new low energy radio and protocol stack are not intended to replace traditional Bluetooth which can handle longer data streams and connectivity. But with ultra low power and small efficient packets, these devices will last months and years off coin cell batteries. No charging adapter required! Providing an open air coverage of 100 meters – these are considered to be devices that will provide “home coverage”.

Manufacturers will be able to start building the chips and hardware into phones by the end of 2010 and we should see much broader availability in 2011. The applications will follow but certainly some cool entrants will have solutions available for use as soon as the phones are out.

Bluetooth low energy is poised to provide many practical, innovative, and downright cool advances in the world of mobile health (aka mHealth). Capture information such as pulse, temperature, or blood glucose level and EASILY get that data to a web service. With this next level of data granularity available by the internet of things, analysts can review data to correlate consumption to outcomes. This is about maintaining and improving our quality of life.

OK, OK… how about this? How many times did you ACTUALLY swing the golf club on your round at Torrey Pines? Can your SkyCaddie tell you that?

More Links and presentations following:

mHealth business models

View more presentations from Nick Hunn.