Actually, while having benefits, software consortiums typically "fail".
They do well in bringing the best-of-breed together into one place - but rarely, if ever, are true standards developed in the name of these things.
It is important to understand that mobile readers do not require a physical infrastructure build out. We are talking about device-wide software solutions. There won't be any "qode-enabled cell towers" or "qode-enables optical wiring".
Qode is ENTIRELY consumer-driven - meaning qode's market is likely to be fragmented and comprised of a number of competitors.
I see qode, and other mobile readers, much like I see the web browsers (Opera, Firefox and Internet Explorer) I use on my computer. Different and unique software to resolve the same computer code. Netscape was once a public company, Microsoft once sold IE as a packaged software in BestBuy - looking back, how ridiculous is that business model?
NEOM's model going forward should be self-evident, yet the company has consistently failed to execute while resting on it's (patent) laurels.
Sorry, that isn't going to work in a technology world becoming increasingly open-source. Maybe in five years when the stock is trading at $0.00005, mobile barcodes are as normal as clicking on a hyperlink and everyone has forgotten NEOM they can try the patent route again for a 10 to 100 bagger.
Until then, well, good luck to you.