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Wal-Mart: Business
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RFID is not new. But before Wal-Mart revealed its initiative, the technology was used mainly for tracking very high-value assets. One analyst has called RFID "the oldest emerging technology," said Julie England, VP of Texas Instruments Inc. and general manager of its RFID business. England kicked off the opening of the show, which has grown from a mere 250 attendees two years ago in Fort Lauderdale, Fla., to more than 3,000 attendees today.
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Chris Easton, director of business development at ObjectStore, a division of Progress Software, said that in order to share this kind of data Wal-Mart will need to create a service-oriented architecture to have the various vendor systems interoperate with Wal-Mart. "Wal-Mart can make that available as a service for the vendors to query as required," Easton said.
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With the new commitments, Wal-Mart is trying to cement its reputation as a leader in areas where it was once known as a laggard. The initiatives are the most visible sign to date that Wal-Mart, which spent much of the past decade defending itself against criticism of its business practices, has gone on the offensive.
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Wal-Mart got into digital music late, made absolutely no impact, and was promptly forgotten about. It's worth looking at again: The retail giant is going to sell DRM-free tracks from both Universal and EMI, something no other store can currently offer. There are plenty of ways for Wal-Mart to screw this up, of course. But if they don't, they may finally provide what the music business has been begging for -- a well-financed rival to Steve Jobs and Apple.
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