RFID player sets up center in B'lore

BANGALORE: US based OAT Systems, a RFID framework provider, has opened its product development center in Bangalore. The 12,000 sq ft facility currently houses 20 engineers and would focus on product development, services and support of RFID software.

Speaking at the launch of operations, OAT Systems CTO, Sanjay Sarma, who is widely acknowledged as the "Father of RFID", said, "We are strongly focused on product development and we expect the Bangalore center headcount to exceed that of the US R&D team some years down the line." He informed that with the emphasis being on product development, the company was not focused on increasing the number of employees as much as adding value.

About the investment into the center, he said that a portion of the $11.5 million funding that the company received from VCs-Matrix Partners and Greylock would be pumped into the new facility. The company currently employs 90 people spread across its Waltham, Massachusetts, Chicago, London and Bangalore offices.

OAT Systems has a suite of RFID software called the OAT Foundation suite that caters to more than 40 Global 500 clients including Tesco, Gillette and HP.

OAT Systems has also announced that it would partner with Infosys to leverage its RFID practice to identify business opportunities across multiple vertical markets. "Infosys would help in deploying OAT Systems' RFID Software and both companies would follow a joint go-to-market strategy," Sarma said.

He added that the Indian center would play a strategic role in terms of extending the company's reach to Asia and the European Union in terms of services and support. "By the end of the year, we expect around 30 odd deployments in Asia alone," he said.

The company is also optimistic that a lot of growth potential for the technology would come from India. "While India is still behind in retailing, RFID could find use in areas like defense, oil and gas and the pharma industry," Sarma said.

The Yankee group estimates the RFID opportunity to reach $4.2 billion by 2008. "India needs to be at the forefront of this technology and we cannot afford to be laggards in this," he concluded.