RFID will take on a larger share of IT spending over the next year. Information Week reports in a new Forrester Research study out June 1, 2004 (requires fee):

According to senior analyst christine Spivey Overby, 37% of companies surveyed expect RFID deployments to increase over the next year. The biggest interest in RFID is in the consumer products and retail industries, which account for 31% of the companies planning to increase their deployment.

However, RFID is not only a technology issue, and Spivey Overby found that the money to pay for implementation will come from sources outside of the IT budget. She notes that companies are increasing their IT budgets by 1.24%, compared with an increase of 1.69% in RFID spending. "For many companies, significant portions of RFID spending--such as tag costs and warehouse reengineering--will come from operational budgets outside of IT," she writes.

And the companies furthest along? Those that already have deployed or tested supply chain management solutions.