IBM in $250m RFID bonanza

Big Blue is putting some big numbers into RFID - it’s announced it is to spend $250m on the tracking technology.

The investment will be spread over the next five years and will see IBM ploughing the money into sensor and actuator technologies, to help bridge RFID hardware such as chips and PCs with business applications, most commonly supply chain management for

Big Blue will also be taking the wraps off a new middleware product before the end of the year designed to collect and manage data from RFID readers along the supply chain.

IBM is also hoping a little bit of research will go a long way in persuading big business that RFID is the next big thing.

The company has signed up Heinz to be the guinea pig in a project to move from the traditional ‘slap and ship’ approach to tagging products as they are made. The project aims to prove a 10 year business case for RFID.