A survey by Wavelink Corp. of 135 attendees at the recent Frontline Conference and Expo confirms what you might have guessed: that mandates by retailers and the U.S. Department of Defense are driving suppliers to adopt RFID sooner than many would like.

Even though many companies (79% of those surveyed) are working on pilots or planning an implementation, they expressed concerns.

What were the top concerns? Mostly the survey confirms what we've all known already, with one small surprising fact:

• 60% currently piloting the technology or planning to in the next two years said cost was a primary concern.
• 42% said the lack of standards is a concern.
• 36% listed an early, untested market as an issue.
• And here's the surprising finding, one that I haven't seen widely discussed before: 30% were troubled by the lack of sophisticated software to integrate RFID with business applications, such as supply chain management and enterprise resource planning systems.

This survey was conducted by a software supplier, which may have something to do with the fact that software was even raised as a survey question.

And it is important that software be discussed, and that software be recognized as a critical component of any RFID system.

Many of the early news reports focused mainly on tag and reader technology, without addressing the critical component of the software necessary to effectively use the data collected through RFID.

[Source of survey report: InformationWeek.]