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This focus on ROI will ensure steady and sustainable growth in the RFID middleware market. Additionally, RFID middleware products have the ability to facilitate strong returns in emerging market verticals by ensuring the relevance and usability of data.

New analysis from Frost & Sullivan North American RFID Middleware and Software Markets, reveals that this market earned revenues of $21.7 million in 2006 and estimates this to reach US $113 million in 2013.

"The RFID market is poised for stronger growth during 2007 and 2008 due to end users increased acceptance of RFID as a valuable tool to increase efficiency in a number of applications," says Frost & Sullivan Research Analyst Brendon Ouimette. "Asset management, inventory management, and work in process visibility applications will require the type of data management capabilities that RFID middleware provides."

By creating valuable knowledge from terabytes of raw data, RFID middleware has helped garner positive returns in many applications. By focusing on ROI-based adoption and addressing software and protocol interoperability, RFID middleware vendors can help broaden the number of end users and their investments.

However, unlike closed-loop applications such as asset tracking, open-loop applications have not presented a clear ROI-case due to the high tag and process costs. Since open-loop applications represent the largest potential for RFID market growth, and RFID middleware is now an essential infrastructure component, middleware market growth will remain linear unless these applications show fast ROI.

Market end-users seeking to increase the probability of attaining higher returns, without waiting for a 5-cent tag solution, can increase their chances by maximizing the value of every data capture point through RFID middleware. However, higher read rates are only a part of gaining the process visibility that leads to ROI. Those vendors who offer effective enterprise software integration have a strong competitive advantage.

"By offering full infrastructure solutions backed up by seamless enterprise software integration, middleware companies can help recognize often-elusive ROI in RFID," notes Ouimette. "Incorporating that data into enterprise-wide systems gives companies the ability to draw meaningful conclusions about their business processes and where they can improve."

North American RFID Middleware and Software Markets is part of the Automatic Identification & Security Growth Partnership Service, which includes research services in the following markets: the North American RFID passive tag and reader markets, the market for RFID Middleware in Europe, and the Asia Pacific RFID Supply Chain market. This Growth Partnership Service also includes other global and regional research services including video surveillance systems, biometrics, and access control systems. All research services included in subscriptions provide detailed market opportunities and industry trends evaluated following extensive interviews with market participants. Interviews with the press are available.