How Prescient was Gartner on the Path RFID in 2004?

It was 2004. The Walmart RFID mandate was just beginning. The RFID hype machine may have been at its apex. That's when Jeff Woods, then a smart young analyst at Gartner (now an executive at SAP), wrote a rather interesting research note offering a cautionary if nevertheless long-term positive view of RFID. The note was as titled "Prepare for RFID Disillusionment," a reference to Garnter's well-known technology hype cycles, which track how new "solutions" invariably follow a path ofreaching maximum hype, only to fall into a "trough of disillusionment," hopefully to eventually reach a "slope of enlightenment."