Product Development in a Flat World

Sarah Clark, the editor of Near Field Communications World has posted a question: Is NFC ripe for adoption, or has it missed the boat?

This is prompted by a recent report by ABI Research:

“Once, NFC (Near Field Communication) was the leading contender among technologies that could enable mobile payments.” says an ABI Research press release announcing its new report ‘Mobile Commerce and Payments’. “But NFC has developed more slowly than anticipated, and will not offer viable large-scale mobile payment solutions for at least six years.”

At the same time Sarah Clark reports that French retailers commit to large scale NFC trials in 2009.

France’s largest retail chains have agreed to work together with the country’s leading mobile operators to put in place a series of large scale near field communication trials that will see consumers using NFC phones to make payments and manage their loyalty cards.

Some other recent examples of NFC deployments/pilots:

• Coffee Republic Brews Up RFID Loyalty Cards: The British coffee chain is issuing NFC-enabled smart cards, provided by sQuid, that customers can use to pay for food and drink, as well as earn discounts.
• ITN International Deploys Five Hundred Nokia NFC Mobile Phones at Greenbuild 2008: TN International, Inc., provider of registration services and information exchange tools for trade shows and events, completed the largest ever deployment of NFC mobile technology in the U.S. trade show and event market.
• ING and MasterCard in Romanian m-payments trial: Dutch bank ING and MasterCard are to pilot a near field communications (NFC)-based mobile payments system in Romania, enabling customers to use their handsets to pay for low value purchases.

One of the keys to enabling adoption of emerging technologies is to reduce the cost of developing a variety of prototype applications and products for field tests to determine what works and what doesn’t. Enabling NFC adoption by offering capital efficient outsourced & offshore NFC product development services is one of the focus areas at Symphony Services.

So, is NFC ripe for adoption or not? Have your say.