Rating: Of course Neomedia has IP in both areas, McCready admits
The biggest thing currently holding back the 2D barcode industry is a lack of education, says Iain McCready, CEO with NeoMedia. Which is why he welcomes big industry players such as Google and Facebook getting in on the act, because overnight they’ll make millions ‘barcode-aware’.
McCready is also adamant that the industry will thrive because the barcodes themselves are ‘Open’. “QR, Datamatrix and Aztec are ISO standards,” he explained. He predicted that other, ‘proprietary’ codes will disappear.
Microsoft is getting no traction with its [proprietary] Tag format,” McCready observed. “And if they can’t do it, no-one can.”
An important change which he highlighted is the change of use for 2D barcodes from ‘direct’ to ‘indirect’ . A direct code, for example, would point to a specific URL, whereas an ‘indirect’ code is resolved live over the Net.
So, for instance, instead of sending the code reader directly to the main Nokia.com site, an indirect code garners other information from where and how the code was read and could point a Canadian user to a page describing the latest Nokia handsets aimed at women and in French.
A common theme in McCready’s observations is how 2D barcodes and mobile search will soon be inextricably linked. “A code will become just another mechanism to drive transactions to a search engine,” he said.
It will work in exactly the same way as a voice tag, NFC and a visual code to drive traffic through search engines and create even more revenue for the search engine sites.
When a 2D barcode is ‘resolved’ over the Net, it can combine the reader’s own preferences to aid the search. The most powerful aid will, of course, be location.
McCready was, however, unsure just how 2D barcodes and location will be tied together. He told GoMo News that he didn’t think that reader software, like NeoReader, would interact with the GPS capability inside most leading smartphones.
Instead he saw that location information being supplied by the mobile operator’s network. He also viewed operators as playing a great part in standardising 2D barcode reading software.
McCready pointed to a recent deal that has benefited NeoMedia where Telefonica has standardised on the NeoReader for inclusion in all handsets sold in 13 of its Latin American territories.
NeoMedia actually has a hardware arm and has been selling scanners based on its technology and coming out of Germany for use in German and Far Eastern ticketing schemes.
He also pointed out that the five to seven year cycle where retail operations replace their existing laser barcode scanner with new equipment is benefiting 2D codes.
He claims that Tesco is in the process of swapping over its scanners to new ones which will be capable of reading 2D codes.
McCready touched upon the subject of industry consolidation several times and admitted to GoMo News that his company had the resources to fund acquisitions but claimed he wasn’t actively looking to make such deals at present.
The recent injection of funds into NeoMedia by Yorkville Advisors has aided this situation, he hinted.
Pingback: Tweets that mention Mobile search and 2D barcodes to be inextricably linked says NeoMedia -- Topsy.com
This is an absolute riot:
“McCready touched upon the subject of industry consolidation several times and admitted to GoMo News that his company had the resources to fund acquisitions but claimed he wasn’t actively looking to make such deals at present. The recent injection of funds into NeoMedia by Yorkville Advisors has aided this situation, he hinted.”
The “recent injection” of funds is NOT enough to fund current operations, let alone acquisitions! YA has diluted the NeoMedia shareholders into oblivion and Iain is talking funding acquisitions ?!? Iain is a failure. He failed the NeoMedia shareholders and I can’t wait to see the legal firestorm that’s about to ensue.
SEC vs Goldman Sachs anyone? Get ready YA
Pingback: Mobile Barcodes Are Going Nowhere Unless The Big Players Start Using Them : Mobile Marketing Watch - The Pulse Of The Mobile Marketing Community
Pingback: Mobile Barcodes Are Going Nowhere Unless The Big Players Start Using Them
Once again more McCready talk about the “future”. What about past comments related to accomplishments that were suppose to happen this year? (i.e.: Licening deals, Revenue, etc?). Is there no revenue because consumers are not interested in paying for 2D codes? Why isn’t this NeoMedia making true revenue? It’s had plenty of time to estabish an eco system, gather acceptance, and get the word out. What gives?
Let’s go McCready…where’s the gosh darn GOOG or MSFT or APPL partnership?!?!
What’s your IP really worth?
Pingback: Tweets that mention Mobile search and 2D barcodes to be inextricably linked says NeoMedia -- Topsy.com
Pingback: uberVU - social comments
Neomedias hardware arm(Gavitec), is one of the smallest players in the scanner market to date with sales of under a million a year, while the industry giants have sales in the hundreds of millions a year.
It might come as a shock to those who have not researched bar code scanners, that the 2D scanners have been on the market since pre 2003, and many of those sold over the past 5 years merely require a software update to convert to 2D scanning if they were not already capable 5 years ago or so when bought.
As for the funding and possible acquisition remarks, what a joke. Neomedia tried that avenue at one point and it cost them millions of dollars in losses, after having to return the acquisitions back over to the original owners at huge losses.
Right now they do not even have the funding for the day to day operations, and quarterly have to secure new loans from YA to pay the month to month bills for payroll and to keep the lights on, and they have the sources for acquisitions? At what price to the shareholders?
Then there is the issue that Neomedia turned over its IP to another company, where Neomedia does not even have the right to license the technology as I recall, since that right was given to their partner in a licensing deal not long ago.
Neomedia and its hardware arm are samll fish in the sea when it comes to this technology, and it suprises me how they are given so much credit here compared to the major players in this technology.