IAnywhere jumps into RFID with middleware suite

IDG News Service - IAnywhere Solutions Inc. is releasing a suite of middleware products designed to help companies build networks for collecting and managing data from radio frequency identification (RFID) devices, the company said yesterday.
Called RFID Anywhere, the software marks iAnywhere's first foray into RFID, which has attracted interest among manufacturers, health care providers and other industries as a way to cut costs and improve the efficiency of supply chains. RFID Anywhere is designed for both large-scale jobs, such as tracking product inventory in a warehouse, and smaller tasks like managing clinical specimens in a laboratory, iAnywhere said.
The product is designed to act as the software "glue" for tying together a network of RFID readers and collecting the information they generate for analysis. It includes prebuilt "connectors" for linking to RFID readers from several manufacturers, and software for filtering information collected by readers into meaningful chunks. For example, as hundreds of pallets in a warehouse move past a reader, a company could be notified when the delivery of a specific product from a particular supplier is complete.
RFID Anywhere is based on Microsoft Corp.'s .Net Web services software, allowing information collected by the readers to be exposed in a "publish/subscribe" model to third-party applications, such as supply chain or business intelligence programs. It also includes a "network simulator" that lets users test the impact of data loads on a system before it is built, as well as software for managing the readers themselves. In addition to RFID readers, it includes connectors for bar codes and other data collection devices.
IAnywhere began signing up companies to test its software last year. Health care customers and the federal government are the software's primary targets, but iAnywhere is getting interest from transportation and logistics providers, according to Steve Robb, iAnywhere's senior director of marketing. The software will be generally available next month with pricing dependent on the number of readers used.
A starter kit for 20 readers will cost $30,000, he said.
RFID Anywhere will compete with offerings from specialized vendors such as ConnecTerra Inc., and with more general platform vendors such as IBM. iAnywhere, in Dublin, Calif., is a subsidiary of database vendor Sybase Inc. and is best known for its mobile database software.
ProPath, a pathology services company in Dallas that analyzes biopsies and Pap smears, is one of iAnywhere's early adopters for the software. ProPath processes up to 2,000 specimens in its labs each day and is using the software to make the process more efficient and reduce the risk of human