If you want an overview of the big picture of the RFID market -- how big it is presently and the forecast for the future -- you need only look to yesterday's opening keynote at . Dr. Peter Harrop, Chairman of IDTechEx, the conference organizers, gave a view of the market that might sound quite a bit different from anything else you may have read about RFID.

Today the market is a "card" market, meaning that RFID in cards (smart cards, access cards, credit cards) is the largest use in dollar terms ($.63 Billion). Next comes animal tagging, especially livestock tagging, at $.2 Billion.

But, in ten years, by 2016, the market will be a "labels" market, meaning that RFID's biggest usage will be as labels -- with a $10.85 Billion market size.

Some of the keys phrases heard during his talk were (and I paraphrase):

• "HF tags - they are back. Today 55% of all RFID is high frequency. In ten years, by 2016, that number will be 70%."
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• "Some 50 companies are working on chipless tag technology."
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• "With regard to RFID mandates, you are selling to reluctant customers (consumer product goods manufacturers) in a market where the retailers have all the power. But this is a Western phenomenon, and retailers do not have the same power in other parts of the world."
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• "Active RFID will be mainly microwave -- and parasitic on other wireless networks such as WiFi."