Line of Business Products Will Help Boost RFID Software Market to $500 Million by 2016

RFID software continues to grow in uptake and according to the latest forecasts from ABI Research, software revenues are set to increase at a compound annual growth rate (CAGR) of more than 20% through 2016.

“RFID is proving its value across a wide range of verticals, from automotive to retail to healthcare,” says principal analyst Bill Arnold. “RFID tags and readers may capture real-time data, but it takes software packages to make that data useful to the organization. RFID-focused software revenue should approach $500 million in 2016.”

ABI Research sees this software as belonging to two classes: “Platform” and “Line of Business (LOB).” Platforms handle the raw information and hand it off to other relevant software systems such as accounting, reporting, or resource management systems. LOB software enables specific activities such as warehouse operations, inventory management, or other daily operational tasks, generally at a departmental level as opposed to the whole organization.

“The LOB software category is growing more rapidly overall,” says Arnold. “It is becoming much easier to configure, and if matched with an appropriate RFID ‘platform’, many of the costly integration discussions of the past no longer apply. The software has to be both hardware- and technology-agnostic. Getting it to this level of application specificity has been challenging and has required intense, constant investment in enhancing the software’s capabilities; all while average prices continue to decline.”

For these reasons, most RFID software is produced by vendors focused  exclusively on this market, such as Xterprise, Checkpoint Systems (OAT is the software), Insync, S3Edge, and more.

At present, North America is the largest regional market for RFID software; APAC follows some distance behind, with Europe the third-largest market.

ABI Research’s “RFID System Software for Business Optimization” study tracks the evolution of RFID software over the past five years and offers revenue forecasts for the next five. It defines and explores the concept of “platforms” and explains how potential customers evaluate RFID software packages and vendors. The report also includes international survey results.

It is part of the firm’s RFID Research Service which also includes other Research Reports, Market Data, ABI Insights, ABI Vendor Matrices, and analyst inquiry support.

ABI Research provides in-depth analysis and quantitative forecasting of trends in global connectivity and other emerging technologies. From offices in North America, Europe and Asia, ABI Research’s worldwide team of experts advises thousands of decision makers through 40+ research and advisory services. Est. 1990. For more information visit www.abiresearch.com, or call +1.516.624.2500.​