Here is some commentary from Sean Loving, SkyeTek's founder: 

While the buzz is squarely on Supply Chain Management (SCM), I happen to believe that SCM is the least interesting part of the RFID market. Frankly, SCM is downright dull when you start to understand enabled reader technology.

At SkyeTek, we divide the embedded reader market into two primary segments: dedicated and enabled.

Dedicated readers look and smell like RFID readers - things like dock-door readers, handheld scanners, label printers, etc.

Enabled readers are far more interesting, because most of the time you wouldn’t know or expect RFID to be in there - things like medical devices, exercise equipment, and consumer electronics to name just a few of the places we have embedded enabled readers.

Though it gets somewhat scant industry attention, I expect the mega opportunity in RFID will have almost nothing to do with SCM. While analysts have not covered embedded RFID readers (especially the enabled portion) and thus there are no reports to support this theory, (though I’d welcome the research…are you listening VDC, IDC, Gartner, etc.?), I have strong anecdotal evidence that comes from our customer base.

Many if not most of our customers are not your typical SCM RFID install. Rather they work in vertical industries where RFID was not even in the consideration set a year ago, and amongst their competitors probably still isn’t. Yet our customers are solving real problems and enjoying real benefits from enabled solutions.

From our perspective, the attention that WalMart and the chips inserted in “Muffy” have generated is certainly a positive. It has gotten people thinking about what RFID can do for them, and I think it is worth pointing to some illuminating facts from our business:

(a) SkyeTek had already enabled over 100 unique applications with RFID before ever making a single outbound sales call

(b) we continue to see increasing demand in the form of inbound inquiries for embedded reader technology in some form or another.

The point is that once people start thinking about RFID, they end up applying the technology in totally new and innovative ways. Usually the more deeply they embed RFID into the product or service they already provide, the more interesting and useful the application becomes. Again, from our own sales leads we can say that when embedded customers seek out RFID solutions they occasionally find the marketplace offers what they need. More often, at least outside of SCM, they quickly learn how hard it is to fit a dock door reader or an animal scanner into their next generation DVD player, stair-climber, or microwave oven.

While the business motivations of customers are predictable (protection of consumables revenue, security and authentication, inventory and positive id), the functional and performance requirements are diverse, from readers in cell phones to readers in conveyor belts. Regardless of the type of equipment, OEMs are finding they need embedded reader technology to meet the most important requirements of their particular application and market, and this means looking beyond the purpose-built, vertical-specific hardware devices that seem to dominate the market.

In order to extend RFID to 1000s of new applications, a new technology and approach is needed to address this vastly underserved opportunity, and this means embedded readers. At SkyeTek we are looking beyond the current landscape and, along with others, are working to make embedded RFID reader technology more readily available, and able to meet the widespread but under-reported demand that is brewing across every vertical and horizontal market, and not simply working within the SCM doldrums.