M2M solutions provider RACO Wireless is supporting wireless credit card authorization and card activation for ConnectNow Custom Gift Card Kiosk by OpenMotion, the company recently announced. The ConnectNow Custom Gift Card Kiosk enables consumers to create unique gift cards in a self-service, digital touchscreen environment.

“Retailers require our kiosks to communicate credit card data and other critical real-time information, and we needed to do this reliably and at an affordable cost. RACO Wireless provided us with the best of both,” said Rob Deubell, president of OpenMotion.

RACO Wireless is the recently spun-off M2M business of T-Mobile (News - Alert). John Horn, the president of RACO Wireless, recently told TMCnet that because M2M is starting to move at the pace of the Internet, spinning off the group from T-Mobile allowed it to respond more quickly to the requirements of this blossoming marketplace. RACO prides itself on its ability to onboard M2M applications and customers quickly. The company claims it can onboard new solution providers in as little as one day, compared to the industry average of several weeks to several months.

As will be discussed in the upcoming issue of Next Gen Mobility, a new TMC (News - Alert) publication, Horn believes M2M may have hit the turn in the hockey stick, given that customer education, network pricing and module pricing have come together to create critical mass across various verticals.

The prepaid card market for retailers, including companies like OpenMotion, is expected to grow from $279 billion in 2012 to $329 billion in 2014. And Compass (News - Alert) Intelligence forecasts the M2M and connected device market will reach 87 million endpoints by 2015, with a compound annual growth rate of more than 25 percent.

“We are currently on the cusp of an era where every device that can benefit from being connected via a cellular connection to the Internet will be connected to the Internet and other devices,” said James Brehm, senior strategist and consultant at Compass Intelligence. “These devices include cars, electrical meters, health and wellness devices, surveillance systems and many other complex systems; and the process isn't always a simple one. To meet the promise that M2M holds, the industry requires an ecosystem that enables non-traditional companies to look for new business models, simplify and accelerate the onboarding process, hide the complexity from the end user and thus provide a simple and seamless customer experience.”

Want to learn more about M2M technologies? Then be sure to check out the M2M Evolution Conference, collocated with TMC’s ITEXPO East 2012taking place Jan. 31-Feb. 3 2012, in Miami, FL. The M2M Evolution Conference is for industry professionals interested in capitalizing on a rapidly growing segment of the telecom industry. The M2M Evolution Conference embraces the any-to-any strategy of the Internet today. Co-sponsored by TMC Partner Crossfire Media, it showcases the solutions, and examines the data strategies and technological requirements that enterprises and carriers need to capitalize on a market segment that is estimated to grow to $300 Billion in the year ahead. For more information on registering for the M2M Evolution Conference click here.

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