Sun Microsystems today announced plans to open a 12,000 square foot European Radio Frequency Identification (RFID) test center in Scotland. Scheduled to open by February 2004, this center will help European-based companies test their RFID solutions, and ensure compliance with regulatory standards and adequate privacy protection. Corporations and government agencies around the world recognize RFID's potential to cut supply chain costs, increase operational efficiencies, speed delivery time, and minimize theft and waste. Encompassing hardware, software, services and best-of-breed partnerships, Sun's enterprise RFID initiatives and solutions go far beyond that of any other company today.
"RFID technology exemplifies the critical shift currently underway in computing -- the move away from a PC-centric world to a world of always connected things," said Jonathan Schwartz, executive vice president of software, Sun Microsystems. "RFID extends network connectivity from the things we interact with directly to a broad range of objects. Eventually, anything of value will be connected to the network, and Sun is in the best position to deliver the necessary technologies for customers to turn that connectedness into bottom line revenue. I encourage any company investigating RFID technology to contact Sun today."
Sun's European-based RFID Test Center, along with its RFID Test Center in the United States, will help companies with their RFID testing -- from tagging their products, to getting information integrated into their back-end systems and sharing this information with their supply chain partners. Companies are using the Electronic Product Code (EPC) compliant RFID technology for identifying, tracking and tracing deliveries and inventory, delivering immediate ROI through reduction of out of stocks, decrease in shrinkage, lower labor costs, lower inventory costs, and the ability to trace products back to origin.
The Sun RFID test center will be located in Scotland and is scheduled to be open to all European-based companies by February 2004. The Sun RFID Test Center will be powered by the Solaris Operating System, using Sun Java Enterprise System software, and the Sun standards-based implementation of Savant with innovations that include a self-healing architecture that can dynamically provision software to ensure maximum reliability and scalability. Using best practices, Sun Services partners with suppliers to provide IT consulting expertise that helps ensure their solution is architected and implemented to maximize return on investment and minimize total cost of ownership. These test centers ensure supplier compliance with Wal-Mart's January 1, 2005 RFID specifications mandate.