emerging wifi wimax rfid competitive edge

EmE rging T s in T h E EnTErpris A QuA litAtive Review of Su vey R f inding WiFi, WiMAX, And RFId technologIes to help coMpAnIes gAIn A coMpetItIve edge. Faced with ever-increasing it and management complexities, rising costs, and fierce competition, enter- were that it supports campus-wide access for most users (16%), and supports specific application/ prises are increasingly relying on emerging technologies such as wireless fidelity (WiFi), citywide wireless service production needs (15%). Among those survey respondents who indicated that (WiMAX), and radio frequency identification (RFID). These are the findings in a recently conducted Ziff Davis their companies are not planning to use wiFi in the next two years, 40% said that their organizations have no Media survey, sponsored by , of technology deci- sion-makers in companies of 1,000 or more employees. interest in using WiFi. Among this group, 12% said that support of a specific application/production need would be the top reason for WiFi’s use. WiFi GaininG MoMentuM WiFi technology increasingly is being used among larger companies for a variety of reasons. According to 31% of Greatest Obstacles to Using WiFi survey respondents (both users and non-users of WiFi), the number-one business rationale for using WiFi is that Which are or would be the greatest challenges that your organization faces in implementing/managing a WiFi network? it enables in-building roaming network access for most employees. Other important reasons cited for WiFi’s use Security: Risk of intruders hijacking/using network 66% Most Important Reason for Using WiFi Security: Risk of losing corporate data 60% What is or would be your organization’s most important reason for using WiFi for building/campus networks? Blind spots within building/campus 41% Enables in-building roaming network access for most employees 31% Cost of running both wired and wireless networks 19% This result is 64% among Cost of moving users to notebooks for mobile access those with campus-wide Supports campus-wide access for most users 16% 17% implementations Supports specific application/ production needs Interference from neighboring networks 16% 15% Interference among multiple internal WiFi networks 14% Enables in-building roaming access only for selected employees 12% Don’t know/Not applicable 11% Replaces cabled network access 7% Other 5% No organizational interest in WiFi 11% Seventy-four percent of survey respondents said that their organizations either presently use or plan to implement WiFi. Of this group, 60% have already put Don’t know 5% WiFi in place, while 6% plan to implement it within the next year. Eleven percent said that their organizations Among those not planning to use WiFi in next 2 years, plan to evaluate WiFi at some point in the future, while 10% do not plan to evaluate its use at all. 40% say the organization has no interest in WiFi Among those survey respondents whose companies already have implemented WiFi, a total of 46% state that their WiFi networks cover all or most of their • lower cost for commercial wireless services • point of access for VPN, telecommuting, and organization. Among this group of current WiFi users, 64% said that they expected their companies to expand data access • increased speed and stability • redundancy. WiFi use moderately in the future. According to survey participants (all users and interest hiGh in rFid, But sloW adoption non-users of WiFi), the greatest obstacles to using WiFi are security-related. Sixty-six percent of respondents Although most enterprises see numerous benefits in us- ing RFID technology, relatively few are actually putting it said that the risk of intruders hijacking or using the WiFi network was the number-one obstacle to its implemen- into practice within their organizations as yet. According to 34% of all survey respondents (RFID users and non- tation, while 60% cited the risk of losing corporate data through WiFi networks as of paramount concern. Other users), the most important reason for using RFID is to better manage inventory and track products through the implementation challenges included blind spots within the building/campus (41%). For those respondents that distribution chain. indicated current campus-wide wiFi implementation, 64% cited blind spots as being a major challenge. RFID: Most Important Reasons and Benefits of Use For users and non-users, what is or would be your organization’s most important reason for using RFID? WiMaX adoption Further oFF The adoption of WiMAX appears to be further away than WiFi, according to the survey. Roughly 18% of all survey For users, which of the benefits from RFID has your organization seen so far? respondents indicated an above-average interest in using WiMAX to support all or part of their Better inventory management/ product tracking 34% 75% organizations’ enterprise networks, while 25% said they had no current interest. Better materials aquisition planning 2% 50% Better production/ manufacturing planning 2% 38% Interest in WiMAX How interested is your organization in using WiMAX to support part or all of your organization’s enterprise networks? Improvements in sales tracking and trending 3% 38% 38% Compliance with demands from customers 8% 25% More targeted product distribution 25% 0% Better business intelligence 13% 18% 8% Users: Benefits from RFID 15% 0% 1% Most Important Reason for 12% Compliance with demands from suppliers Using RFID 11% 7% 6% 5% When those that have actually implemented RFID technologies were asked to cite derived benefits, 75% said the top benefit was better inventory management/ Don't know Not at all 2 3 4 5 6 Extremely interested product tracking, followed by better materials acquisition planning (50%). Respondents also cited better production/ interested manufacturing planning, improvements in sales tracking and trending, and compliance Among those survey respondents that did express interest in using WiMAX, the five top reasons for interest included: with demands from customers as important benefits. • having a very large geographic region to cover (e.g. very-large-scale government sites) In terms of usage trends, 44% of all survey respondents said that their companies use or plan to use RFID. Within that group, responses vary: 16% said that RFID imple- Survey respondents that presently use RFID were also asked to report on the integration of RFID with other ap- plications presently running within their organizations, as mentation is planned but not yet started, while 10% report- ed that their companies were engaged in rFid pilot pro- well as its effect on corporate network traffic. Twenty-five percent reported it was very integrated, half reported grams, and another 10% indicated that their companies were at the roll-out stage. Six percent stated that RFID it was somewhat integrated, and another 25% said slightly integrated. Meanwhile, 50% said that RFID had was applied to some of its companies’ products, while just 2% stated that it was applied to most of its products. moderately increased network traffic, while 13% said it increased sharply and 25% said it neither increased nor decreased. RFID Usage Trends Which one of the below best describes your organization’s current involvement with RFID technology? survey rationale and respondent proFile The survey results presented in this white paper were obtained in a study conducted for Ziff Davis Media in No- In a pilot program RFID is planned, but vember and December 2006 by InsightExpress LLC, an independent market research company located in stam- At the rollout 10% not started 16% stage 10% ford, Conn. An on-line survey was conducted among representative, qualified networking/telco technology Applied to some decision-makers, and readers of enterprise-related pub- lications published by Ziff Davis who are employed at products 6% Applied to most education, financial services, government, healthcare, IT, media/publishing/advertising, and telecommunica- products 2% tions firms with 1,000 or more employees. In total, 110 respondents qualified and completed the survey. Survey estimates are accurate to within +/- 9.2% at the 95% level of confidence. No RFID is planned For more information on how your enterprise can benefit from the use of emerging networking technologies, visit
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