Good links. Thanks. First look is that the reports are mostly those of tech accomplishment, not completed field trials or a slow motion deal happening... Still, it looks great, and the partners there are no slackers, but how are you going to invest in Mojix?
I'll comment more on a couple of the elements.
The first is technical. I'm a tech geek who has done some bit of work on cutting edge tech, including materials and systems design for some advanced future tech systems antennae. RFID isn't really a cutting edge technology, period. It is a business that takes the edge off of cutting edge techs developed in other application areas, and re-applies that tech to a rather mundane application... that just happens to be high value to the end users, not so much for value inherent in the tech, but for value added in the higher resolution supply chain management that results. I'd agree that the improvements the links highlight are useful, with new antennae schemes combined with new logic providing the enhancements noted. I'm not dissing the level of sizzle in the tech in the segment just to act superior... the point is that what is needed isn't always the geekiest possible, which is extravagant in development cost and often in installation... but the optimal functions for the lowest costs... including life cycle cost, upgrade-ability, etc. How much is known about the relative state of ABSY tech ?
The second is the divisions forming between functions in application, including between passive and active systems. As the tech improves, it will get right sized, including that the highest value functions will get systems that cost more and work better. It looks to me like the segment techies are resisting the concept that "one size fits all" solutions may NOT even be desirable in a value driven model. I expect that both passive and active systems will improve, add features, and generally get beyond the rudimentary capabilities we see now... but will still sustain the divisions we see now, too... because there are inherent differences in the functions. All passive systems will have limits and susceptibilities that active systems can avoid... true now... and true in the future as the feature and capabilities of each advance. You see the same/similar drivers in most related tech... hot new chips or older but adequate chips... single crystal solar panels, or flexible polysilicon panels... one costs more and works better... one costs less and performs less... unless cost matters more than performance. It is cheaper to put the most expensive panels on a satellite... silly to put them on your roof. Same concept here.
Third is the disconnect we both note between the rate of adoption and the rate of innovation. The tech matters... but, in noting the pace of adoption, it seems that the tech doesn't matter enough to the customers to drive an acceleration in terms of their being vastly more aggressive in hotly pursuing current generation techs, much less accelerating their efforts in adopting the current tech. To an early in the curve adopting techie, that may seem absurd, but to a retail management, the caution makes great sense and is usually what is most well rewarded. WE are here discussing the plodding ways of retail, while the market thinks the customer we are discussing... Staples... is a lightning fast, trail blazing tech adopting pioneer. Why the difference in perception... and what is the implication for the RFID supplier? Passive systems are being adopted rapidly in large part because well managed large customers... WalMart, the DoD... have the market power to impose the requirement on suppliers. Bottom line is that you aren't selling the management of a retail operation a new technology... you are selling them an improvement in their own management capability. There is more that will go into their decision making than the heat rising from the "tech"... and, here, the relationships MATTER a lot. Note, again, the plodding nature of Staples commitment and adoption pace... the pace seen in the tech developments... and the fact that it is a retail management upgrade being sold... and you might reconsider which features are those most valued by the customers in the whole package ?
Finally, seeing the new industry as a whole, RFID exists as a separate market with pure play companies in it, ONLY because the application is still "that" new. The tech is not all that new... but the companies take advantage of greater awareness of others tech in offering it re-packaged for use in the new app. I do expect that novelty will wear off. The RFID companies will be absorbed as or before the pace of innovation slows... as the tech applied gets closer to the cutting edge that starts to drive new development costs higher. I don't see it ever being a utility to drive new tech developments that will be applied elsewhere... cost/benefit, again, so, the rest that matters in investments here, I think, is that pure plays are easier take over targets... and I want companies that are free to become unfree at a nice price.
Hope thats useful ? Nothing definitive... just the musings that occurred to me looking at yours. I'm a hypertechie, but, given the realities of the RIFD customers and their drivers, and the realities of the stock market, I value the position at the intersection in the Fujitsu/Staples relationships, and marginal performance now, far more than the other techie stuff. I expect ABSY to stay competitive as an integrator FOR their sponsors and clients to meet their needs, which they should know better than others, not because there is a risk they will be out-teched and replaced by some other company without the relationships and perspective?
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