Express the RFID in you! : Author : Anush Kumar

The first ever Microsoft RFID Solution Days is here!

Anush - MSFT — Sat, 05 Jan 2008 05:32:47 GMT

Gives us great pleasure to announce the first edition of the WW RFID Solution Days and Partner Expo to be held from February 18-21 @ the Westin in Bellevue , WA. This event will kickoff with keynotes from industry analysts and business leaders and showcase...(read more)

BizTalk RFID debuts at TechED EMEA (Barcelona gets RFID savvy, Daenet style!)

Anush - MSFT — Thu, 08 Nov 2007 20:27:13 GMT

Biztalk RFID made it's debut in TechED EMEA this week (our premier EMEA developer + IT Pro event -> http://www.mseventseurope.com/teched/07/itforum/content/Pages/Default.aspx ) This year we hosted a total of 5,250 attendees at this event 4,000+ customers...(read more)

Got Sushi & RFID?

Anush - MSFT — Tue, 02 Oct 2007 08:08:00 GMT

James Allard at Blue C Sushi and I crossed paths 7 months ago, and ever since I've only had admiration for his relentless passion to innovate and provide only the best of the best to his customers - a true visionary in more than one way, and a personality...(read more)

Other BizTalk RFID'ers in blogosphere

Anush - MSFT — Fri, 28 Sep 2007 05:15:11 GMT

As the interest in BizTalk RFID grows, something that I look forward to doing is pointing readers to great blogs on this platform as well as blogs of experts who are using BizTalk RFID to create innovative new applications - my hope is that there will...(read more)

Recent Analyst / Press coverage of BizTalk RFID

Anush - MSFT — Fri, 28 Sep 2007 04:17:51 GMT

Some highlights from AR / PR coverage (if you missed them) 1. AMR’s coverage of BizTalk RFID ( Microsoft BizTalk Server 2006 R2: RFID for Everyman ) 2. Manufacturing Business Technology - Microsoft touts new edition of BizTalk as low-cost solution for...(read more)

BizTalk RFID released!

Anush - MSFT — Fri, 21 Sep 2007 04:03:47 GMT

A whirlwind (and extremely exciting!) 2 weeks it has been as we launch BizTalk server RFID world-wide and I wanted to share with you the excitement and the rich, robust RFID solutions (from the Enterprise to the SMB) that are being enabled world-wide...(read more)

Some great pointers to get started

Anush - MSFT — Sat, 09 Jun 2007 04:53:00 GMT

One of the first questions I always get asked is ‘where do I learn more about BizTalk RFID?’- from a variety of audiences all the way from developers, to IT pros to BDM’s Here’s the teams’ first stab at a few resources that maybe interesting on this front:...(read more)

Fun demos with RFID? Look no further!

Anush - MSFT — Sat, 09 Jun 2007 04:08:00 GMT

Irving, a fellow MSFT’ian (a.k.a. Mr. RFID TAP J ) has a couple of great providers for HF RFID devices (the Phidget and the DLP reader – each less than 100 bucks J ) that plug into your USB port and can show a physical reader at work - generating and...(read more)

The continuing evolution of BizTalk RFID in blogosphere

Anush - MSFT — Sat, 09 Jun 2007 03:33:00 GMT

As I write this (somewhere in LAX, making my way back home from a long and fun week at TechED), it's become increasingly clear to me that the only way to share all the exciting news around what's happening in the RFID world is to a) get a bit more discplined...(read more)

BizTalk RFID @ RFID Journal Live

Anush - MSFT — Sun, 29 Apr 2007 21:44:00 GMT

At RFID Journal LIVE!, the world’s largest RFID conference and exhibition, we are unveiling the covers off our ground breaking RFID platform, BizTalk RFID, and highlighting Microsoft’s commitment to the Connected Enterprise vision.

At the event, we will:

Highlight the availability of our platform via the public Beta of BizTalk Server R2 to the RFID community (With GA of BizTalk R2 continuing to be CYQ3), supported by partner press releases.
Deliver a general session with CHEP, who is well-known/regarded in this industry, and one of our early adopter customers. Our keynote will showcase BizTalk RFID @ Work for CHEP’s pallet pooling business WW and the ROI they’ve obtained from the same with a video of the CHEP deployment in action (agenda available here)
Showcase solution demonstrations with 19 partners at our booth along the following themes:

BizTalk RFID @ Work (early adopter customer solutions in action)

Xterprise, Alien and Zebra showing the iGPS pallet tracking application
Cactus, SATO, Paxar, CSL showing the CHEP ‘track and trace’ application at work
TCS, Motorola showcasing their turnkey returnable asset tracking solution with RFID & sensor based technologies
Intermec, Kikata demonstrating the application in the BlueC Sushi restaurant with RFID, that helps monitor the timing and contents of plates while capturing data to comply with food and safety regulations and improve production of the right items
HP talking about their Supply Chain Visibility initiative built ground up on BizTalk Server and other MS technologies
3M track and trace showing their specimen tracking application, and storyboarding active RFID based high value assets for hospitals
Tyco and Printronix demonstrating their Work in Progress (WIP) PoC built and deployed at Lockheed

Innovation at the Edge - Intel and partners showcasing demo’s on early versions of our BizTalk RFID mobile (alpha) on CE & other innovative HF and Active RFID demos

CSL demonstrating a CE based app for tag inventory atop BizTalk RFID Mobile on a handheld running the R1000 chip from Intel
Unitech showing an inventory reconciliation app with a pick list on ahandheld running BizTalk RFID mobile (alpha), and talking to a backend running BizTalk RFID
Intermec showcasing their CE based reader supporting BizTalk RFID Mobile (alpha) and running a inventory locator demo
Reva systems demonstrating an end-end scenario with their smart appliance as a device on BizTalk RFID
Ubisense demonstrating an active RFID tag based ‘location in the booth’ demo for people / objects moving around in the booth
Cathexis showing how HF RFID over Bluetooth in combination with GPRS can be used for asset management in combination with vehicle fleet management (think IBM ad J)

BizTalk RFID for Small and Medium Businesses Maximum Data Solutions demonstrating warehouse management solutions with deep integration between Dynamic GP and BizTalk RFID

This is a significant step forward for our Biztalk RFID + Partners, and hope to continue buiding on the momentum to bring RFID to the mainstream and allow our end users to leverage this powerful technology to drive real time decision making!

Cheers!

The Microsoft BizTalk RFID platform is here!

Anush - MSFT — Sun, 29 Apr 2007 20:42:00 GMT

A lot of water has flown under the bridge since we began our efforts a few years ago to build a feature rich, scalable RFID platform that would allow end users to create, deploy, and manage end-end RFID solutions and most importantly give the power of this real time data to an organization’s core assets, people, to action upon and better instrument business decisions.

Having had the opportunity to work on this fanstastic team involved in cutting edge innovation since day one am proud to say that though the journey has taken us through many a meandering route, the team never wavered from our commitment to bring RFID to the masses in concert with our partners via BizTalk RFID - The coming week marks a new day and a new journey for us, as we unveil the covers off the Microsoft BizTalk RFID platform (at RFID Journal LIVE!, the world’s largest RFID conference and exhibition)

So what the platform all about, you ask?

The Microsoft BizTalk RFID platform in the BizTalk Server 2006 R2 release a is an device management and event processing platform at the edge of the enterprise, allowing LOB applications to consume and act on the real time visibility that RFID provides. It is designed to provide a scalable, extensible platform for development, deployment, and management of rich RFID and sensor solutions.

In a nutshell:

· The RFID platform / framework broadly encompasses device abstraction / management, event processing, with tools & services for deploying and managing RFID apps through their lifecycle and will be available for release as an integral part of the BizTalk family of products (will be available as part of all BizTalk server SKU’s in the upcoming R2 release)

· We work (today) with a an extensive set of partners in the RFID h/w market, who are building device providers for our platform (to surface their device services) – in this mix are fixed UHF readers (normally used in supply chain track and trace scenarios), mobility focused readers such as handhelds, fork-lift readers, SDIO and pen style HF readers for other types of RFID scenarios.

· The value of this real time data feed (from RFID devices) is realized when it’s combined with data from multiple backend LOB systems to orchestrate the real time enterprise from plant to business (hence the decision to ship as part of BTS)

We are also launching the BizTalk RFID landing page @ www.microsoft.com/biztalk/technologies/rfid/default.mspx which should contain a whole lot more information around why we are so excited about the potential of the platform we have enabled. This includes:

Links to the whitepapers
Pointer to download and use our Beta
Details of our partner ecosystem (hardware and software) If you are looking to use BizTalk RFID with supported hardware the partner websites which will contain a ‘device starter kit’ to reduce time to solution, and simplify device usage on our platform
Links to the BizTalk RFID community
4 real world customer case studies – CHEP, Kildeer, iGPS, and BlueC Sushi (expected to go live through this week and scenarios which I will discuss in more depth in the coming weeks, so stay tuned! J)

In summary, as the RFID industry reaches a maturity of scale where the need now is for scalable, software platforms to build rich applications on, we believe BizTalk RFID is the answer the industry has been looking for to deliver the Connected Enterprise by addressing the “last mile connectivity problem.” With BizTalk RFID customers can now connect real-time business processes to intelligent devices at the mobile edge, unleashing a plethora of real-time physical world visibility driven scenarios to gain business efficiencies that were not possible until today.

In parting, we’ve had the opportunity to stand and learn from industry leaders and our early adopter customers in building BizTalk RFID as we know of it today – And I can’t contain my excitement around the innovation ‘at the edge’ that we’ll be looking to enable with this community as we embark on treading new ground in the areas of real time loosely coupled services that expose, compose, connect, and allow people to consume a variety of real time data from RFID to sensors, and incorporate them seamlessly into their decision making.

Express the RFID in you!

Cheers!