Blog: William McKnight

« Journey to a Real-Time Enterprise | Main | Can RFID be this small? »

RFID chip implant company flat after IPO

Verichip, which created a system for implanting RFID chips into human arms, held its IPO last Friday. After a rough start, it’s still pretty flat. Turns out, it’s sales have not met expectations. The company statement quotes .1M in revenue, which is an interesting way of expressing $100,000. It further says “we may never achieve market acceptance or more than nominal or modest sales of this system.” What?! Did that come from the marketing department? Did it take an IPO to come to this realization?

I’m just wondering if there is a flaw in this system or if it is being marketed correctly. There are a number of human uses of RFID chips. If nightclubs in Europe can convince its VIP patrons to implant themselves, Verichip should be able to get some more arms chipped in the US.

However, there’s more optimism in object implants. This article speaks of a next generation, “super” RFID. While I disagree with the use of “mainstream” and “most CIOs” in the article characterizing the present, the added sensors to the chips for temperature and weight are consistent with retail implementations of RFID now. I refer to this in my latest article “RFID Database Management Systems Architecture for Retailers.”

Technorati tags: RFID

Share: