Is anyone making money yet off radio frequency identification?

If so, they sure aren't bragging about it.

RFID, or radio frequency identification, has been heralded for several years now as a high-tech upgrade for the traditional bar code, an easy way to wirelessly track and catalog almost anything.

RFID's big break seemed to come in 2003, when Wal-Mart Stores Inc. decreed that its suppliers would have to start attaching the tiny computer chips to products delivered to the retailer.

With Wal-Mart endorsing the technology as a way to keep its shelves stocked while keeping better track of what items were in the warehouse, the assumption was that the bottom-line benefit of RFID would be irresistible to anyone who makes and ships a product.

But five years later, Wal-Mart still has to aggressively push its suppliers to hop on the RFID bandwagon, including instituting fines last month for suppliers who fail to attach the radio tags to pallets of goods heading to a Sam's Club distribution center in DeSoto.

If RFID is stumbling, that could be bad news for the Dallas region, which has become a national headquarters in recent years for firms that make and install RFID systems.

IDTechEx analyst Raghu Das wrote in his 2007 RFID year-in-review report that spending on RFID reached about $5 billion last year, but many of the retail suppliers are dragging their heels on implementing the technology.

"Most of these are doing little or nothing in the face of the huge financial cost and lack of payback if (when?) they comply" with the Wal-Mart mandates, he said.

Bob Potter, a Las Colinas-based technology consultant who sits on the board of Zebra Technologies Corp., an Illinois-based RFID hardware and software maker, said that radio frequency technology clearly isn't enjoying the same adoption rate as recent blockbuster technologies.

"When a technology takes off – the VCR, the cellphone, color TV, high-definition TV, the PC, the iPod – they take off," he said. "This one doesn't seem to be taking off."

But Mr. Potter and others say that measuring RFID against those yardsticks might not provide a clear prediction of the technology's ultimate payoff.

"We knew this was more of a marathon and not a sprint," said Dean Frew, president and CEO of Carrollton-based Xterprise Inc., which helps companies install RFID systems. "The reality is it's probably moving at twice the speed bar codes did."

The technology is also hampered by the fact that adopters who are seeing a boost to their bottom lines are reluctant to divulge their successful strategies to potential competitors.

"The reality is because these relationships between suppliers and retailers are so sensitive, they don't want to talk about it much, and that's unfortunate," he said.

Gartner analyst Chad Eschinger, who tracks the RFID industry, agreed that the success stories are being kept under wraps.

"People were pretty close-lipped about their success and their uses," he said.

But there are some indications that radio frequency technology is starting to pull its weight.

Wal-Mart reported previously that it has been able to reduce out-of-stock instances by 30 percent on items that are tagged with RFID chips.

And Mr. Eschinger said using the technology properly and creatively can boost sales as much as 6 percent.

But just slapping a tag on a pallet won't be enough to get those kinds of financial boosts.

Mr. Eschinger said retailers and suppliers need to get more inventive, such as a pilot program in Europe where a customer who takes a pair of RFID-tagged jeans into a dressing room can have their potential purchase scanned by a "smart mirror."

A scanner reads the chip attached to the jeans and reads the cut, size and color of the garment, and the mirror displays other items that might go well with the pants.

"Instead of a sales associate coming over and bending your ear, you're getting a little bit of advice on what's in stock, your colors, that sort of thing," Mr. Eschinger said.

"People are coming up with creative uses to help generate revenue, because tagging stuff, you're not going to make too much money."

Mr. Frew said that RFID only looks like a disappointment to people expecting an unmistakable tipping point for RFID, a short time frame when everyone adopts the technology and the financial benefit becomes obvious.

"We had people who got out there and said this is going to be the new anti-gravity machine," he said. "When you think about the change, it has been enormously quick. But we're still at the early days of this. It took 20 years to get bar codes rolled out, and we're seeing a similar ramp."