storefrontbacktalk.com/story/011808sears2d -
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Published on: 1/18/2008
Last Visited: 12/15/2008
ScanBuy, for example, has worked out deals with only Sprint and Alltel, according to ScanBuy CEO Jonathan Bulkeley.
Such negotiations are complex because it requires deals and programming for multiple browsers, carriers, hardware manufacturers, operating systems and camera manufacturers.
A code or management change from any one of those players can make the whole package unravel.
At the Sears trial, several hundred product advertisements in the store have the code, Bulkeley said, as part of a trial slated to end this June.
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Bulkeley is one of them.
"There are probably only 10,000 people (in the U.S.) who have ever scanned a barcode," he said, adding that he wants manufacturers to pre-install this applet on mobile phones.
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Even so, Bulkeley predicts NFC and 2-D barcode co-existence based on pure economics.
The nature of NFC will lend itself better for payment and POS interface but it's not practical to create one for every print ad in stores, streets and in publications.
But 2-D barcodes, he argued, can be mass-produced for very little money.
"NFC will be for a payment mechanism but I'm not so sure it will be an information access mechanism," Bulkeley said.