If the "Internet of Things" becomes a reality, then you will be able to retrieve information about consumer items you see in your daily life and use it to purchase items on the spot. For example, Mr. Jones sees a tie on one of his coworkers when riding down in the elevator. Since the tie has an embedded RFID tag with a unique identification number, he can use his cell phone with an RFID reader to pull information about the tie from an online database and place his order right in the elevator. Sound crazy? Well, not for Accenture. The "Real-World Showroom" prototype developed by Accenture Technology Labs may help to make "anywhere, anytime" shopping a reality.

Here's another example of going from a vision to a concrete RFID application. Imagine every car as a node of a global, pervasive network. Then, a city government could identify and track movement of cars through its freeway system. This information can be used to impose road improvement taxes on vehicle owners proportional to their actual usage of the freeway system. Similarly, an advertising agency may use this information to position billboards along the freeway. Opportunities are endless if this vision becomes a reality.

The Future of RFID

Predicting the future in the rapidly evolving technology domain is an unrewarding task. Historical analogies do not always work—the fact that the ARPANET evolved into the Internet we know today is not a guarantee that RFID will follow a similar path. However, it won't hurt to adopt a more forward-looking perspective on RFID. In the long run, RFID can turn out to be a disruptive innovation, capable of destroying existing competencies and creating new markets. Failure to embrace the new challenges and opportunities may threaten the existence of a company, just like the failure to embrace the telephone led to the decline of Western Union. Successful adoption of a disruptive innovation, on the other hand, may transform a company into a new AT&T or Microsoft.

Vlad Krotov is a PhD candidate at the Bauer College of Business, University of Houston. He conducts research on IT strategy, innovation and ubiquitous computing.