Sun Microsystems, Inc. Announces New RFID Industry Solution

DALLAS, RFID World Conference, Booth 700, March 1 /PRNewswire-FirstCall/ -- Sun Microsystems, Inc. (Nasdaq: SUNW), today announced the release of its newest RFID Industry Solution Architecture (ISA), the Sun RFID ISA for Manufacturing. The RFID ISA for Manufacturing combines Sun's RFID expertise with its extensive knowledge of the manufacturing industry to address the specific business challenges of the consumer package goods industry and help these customers fully leverage the power of RFID.

The RFID ISA for Manufacturing simplifies and accelerates the process of designing and integrating an RFID solution. Consumer Packaged Goods Manufacturers are looking beyond immediate RFID mandate compliance deadlines, such as those from Wal-Mart, Target, Albertsons and the Department of Defense and are looking at integrating RFID into their business processes to increase efficiencies, reduce costs and accelerate business decisions. The RFID ISA for Manufacturing provides the essential guidelines to help these customers deploy RFID to improve warehouse management and automate advance shipment notification processes.

"Customers are continuing to look at how to achieve business benefits from RFID and how they can apply RFID to specific scenarios within their industry verticals. While there are various players in the market who are claiming RFID expertise, with the RFID Industry Solution Architectures Sun has brought together our proven RFID and vertical industry experience to create unique, targeted solutions to address these challenges," said Stephen Murphy, vice president of industry sales for manufacturing, Sun Microsystems, Inc.

Sun is packaging its RFID technology, product and service offerings, along with that of its partners to create the RFID ISA for Manufacturing. The RFID ISA for Manufacturing provides detailed guidelines to help manufacturers build an end-to-end RFID solution. It contains everything a consumer packaged goods manufacturer needs to deploy RFID for warehouse management and automating the advanced shipment notification process: Sun Java(TM) System RFID Software, Provia Software's ViaWare Warehouse Management System, a Printronix RFID printer, an RFID reader, and integration middleware.

Warehouse Management Systems are a critical component in an end-to-end RFID solution as they are among the last 'systems of record' in the supply chain. "For consumer packaged goods manufacturers, the ability to have RFID as part of a WMS solution allows for the RFID data to be fully utilized throughout the supply chain," said Paul Crist, Provia vice president of sales and marketing. "Our relationship with Sun, combined with our efforts together at several common customers offers consumer packaged goods companies a powerful solution for RFID throughout a supply chain."

All the technology components of the RFID ISA for Manufacturing are standards-based to help ensure compatibility and eliminate the risk of vendor dependency. In addition, the components have standard interfaces, which provide customers the flexibility of swapping or adding other standards-based components. A subset of the technology components in the RFID ISA for Manufacturing can address immediate RFID compliance deadlines and also establish a foundation to help customers achieve longer term business benefits. The RFID ISA for Manufacturing also supports integration with other enterprise software, such as ERP and SCM systems.