Dennis Hettema of OP3 examines barcode standardization issues

Dennis Hettema, the founder and chief executive of OP3, a Sweden-based systems integrator for camera phone barcode application, was kind enough to write his second article about the camera phone barcode business.

Dennis previously wrote about the challenges facing the implementation of camera phone barcode products. In this article he discusses whether whether existing barcode technology or new barcode technology should be used for camera phone e-commerce applications.

Dennis' article

I’ve managed to explain camera phone barcode technology to my grandma in about 10 seconds flat. The great thing is she understood what I was saying and was using the application – without any problem – instantly.

Like any new technology “scancommerce” (as the use of camera phones reading barcodes for e-commerce applications is often called) faces its fair share of challenges. One of these challenges has to do with the interoperability of different applications and standards.

What happens if five of the 15 companies that currently develop this software become successful? Does my grandma have to install five different applications that all work with different barcodes and connections?

Does it mean she’ll have to try several different programs before she finds the one the works with her mobile phone or application?

I certainly hope not, because it would not only confuse her, it would remove the main added value of this application!

The opinions in the market are quite divided, but everyone agrees the lack of standards is a serious issue that needs to be attended to.

Jim Levinger of Nextcode Corporation explains that today’s widespread barcodes were never designed for end-user interaction. Nor were they designed for being read with camera mobile phones – far from it.

He believes new barcodes need to be developed for scanning by camera phones.

Both Simon Woodside (www.semacode.org), and Anil Madhavapeddy (www.highenergymagic.com) agree. The use of specific code for camera phone recognition allows for more efficient applications.

Olivier Attia of Scanbuy believes more in the Linux way of doing things. “Working together to achieve maximum interoperability, no matter what code standard,” Olivier says.

In his opinion Digital Convergence, with their CueCat, failed because they fought for single handed control.

Alejandro Gianakis of UDAR believes that the current non-standard market allows the competing companies to innovate on a faster scale. The standard will eventually be set by the emerging market leader and the standard will be followed by the rest of the industry, he says.

Not being a developer ourselves but focussing on the sales and implementation of camera phone barcode applications gives us a unique and up to date view of the market.

We’re seeing the emergence of two major schools of thought: The “lets design a new code standard” school and the “old code standards allows for easier acceptance of the application” school.

I think both schools have great points. New barcode technologies allow for more robust camphone-specific solutions. However, the new codes have to be introduced and marketed and end users have to be educated about them.

Old barcodes lack the potential robustness but make up for that with their widespread use and international acceptance by end users.

New code development, old code adoption, intellectual property rights, handset vendor and mobile carrier adoption. They’re but a few important aspects for the adoption of an interoperable standard.

It’s too early to tell where this interoperability issue might take us, through OP3 we’ve found out that all developers see it as a core issue and they are all open to discussion.

All evolving technologies have problems. But I believe some day soon my grandmother (and the masses) will be able to easily use the mobile commerce channel thanks to this exciting technology!

Comments

[mtnwing]

it would be interesting to see a full opensource movement around this concept of barcode generation/reading with off the shelf cameras.

I can imagine mom and pops printing their own bar codes on an inkjets for the local nick nack store in arkansas to keep close eye on that last nickel of inventory (no offense to you tech savy razorbacks . . .)

I can only imagine the creativity and industry disruption this movement could cause since to date barcode systems have been basically been walled off to just the realm of commercial readers and software.

[Dennis]

Have a look at Simon Woodside's http://www.semacode.org for the mom and pop solutions.