Active RFID provider WhereNet has been acquired by Zebra Technologies
in a $126 million cash deal. Privately-held WhereNet provides real-time locating system (RTLS)
technology for industrial asset management, to Zebra's, portfolio of bar code, passive RFID smart label, and other specialty
printing solutions. From the story in RFID Update:
for the foreseeable future and will retain its focus on core markets.
Zebra will quickly begin exploring how to leverage sales and marketing
opportunities, but most business operations at both companies will be
largely unchanged in the near term. WhereNet CEO Dan Doles will
continue to lead the company.
In a conference call for media and financial analysts, Zebra
executives said combining WhereNet's technology leadership, customer
base, and management with Zebra's global reach, sales and marketing
prowess, and industry leadership will help accelerate RTLS adoption and
lead to new sales opportunities for Zebra's core products. Zebra says
active RFID is the natural extension to its tracking technologies,
which started with bar code labels and extended to passive UHF and HF
RFID technology. Zebra is the worldwide market share leader for thermal
bar code label printers and may well also be the RFID printer/encoder
market share leader.
WhereNet's not much of a player in health care, and the RTLS market is centered more on highly specialized process management rather than asset management.
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