Rodent Regatta

Ten days of immersion in web services and managed service models has me wondering if anyone will figure out how to return to the feature-function-benefit school of selling. I’ve seen accounting and ERP products offered as managed services. I’ve seen complete voice-over-IP phone solutions that just happen to blend email, messaging, digitized voicemail, telephony and a host of other things that only a technologist can imagine doing with a phone. Each supplier represents his or her product as the one with the faster, bigger or better technology. Sadly, not one has sought to understand the problem their product might solve, but they certainly love to hear themselves.

Yesterday’s discussion of RFID was intentionally written to counter Walmart’s cheerleading. There is no doubt that the 3000 people attending this RFID conference are largely there because of the impact that Walmart has made on its suppliers.

That’s enough to build an entire industry focusing RFID on supply-chain work. It doesn’t mean that there is an easy return on investment for the suppliers. They do things to come into compliance with Walmart’s requests, regardless of whether they can see the ROI.

No one wants to be left out. A sale to Walmart is the biggest sale many of these suppliers will ever make. Nevermind what it costs them to adequately serve the customer.

TextDrive is a hosting company formed in 2004 by Dean Allen. Recently, TextDrive has been offering hosting accounts for life to a limited number of participants. This morning, Dean announced that there were only 33 spots remaining in this current offer.

For $399 you get the following:

• 1GB of server space
• 20GB of bandwidth per month
• up to 15 top-level domains (with unlimited aliases)
• unlimited email mailboxes and aliases
• shell access

Details and a way to sign up are here.

* * * UPDATE * * * They sold out. Whether 100, 200 or 500 customers bought this deal, TextDrive has broken the code when it comes to raising the capital required for capital improvements and expansion. Operating revenues come from those who choose to pay for their services as they use it. It’s quite the ingenious technique for financing.

RFID just can’t seem to get over the hump. Unfortunately, it’s not entirely clear what the “hump” might be. Some business owners dream of a day with no physical inventories. I don’t mean no physical goods; I mean no counting of those physical goods on a monthly, annual or other cycle. Wouldn’t it be great to send a signal out to the warehouse saying, “all you RFID tags out there, sound off.” With that your physical inventory would be taken in the time it takes the electrons to stream back to their aggregation point.

Reality is much different today. RFID seems to be making some inroads with manufacturers. After all, tagging the same size box with the same type of tag on a conveyor you control is rather easy. Enter a UPS or FedEx sort facility or a Walmart warehouse and the challenges multiply.

In these scenarios, we’re asking RFID for ubiquity. No matter the shape of the container and no matter where and how the label was produced, we want RFID to work one hundred percent of the time. It doesn’t. It looks as if it won’t for some time to come.

With read rates of tradiitional barcodes approaching 100%, RFID technology is going to have to change dramatically in performance and price to make the impact on general distribution. In the meantime, we can keep going to conferences and hoping for a breakthrough.

In May of 2004 I made one of the great investments we get to make in a lifetime. Today, that investment effectively doubled in value.

Rather than gloat about my little tale of good fortune, I’m making you aware of a similar opportunity. It’s a web hosting account for life if you take the folks at TextDrive up on their offer.