Radio frequency identification (RFID) is all about managing "things." If your company manufactures, distributes, or sells products, you may be involved in an RFID project sometime soon — or should be. In this interview with Bernard Traversat, we learn what IT managers should do now to prepare their companies for RFID deployment.

Bernard Traversat is the Sr. Engineering Manager for RFID and JXTA at Sun Microsystems Inc. Bernard is leading the development of Sun Java System RFID product, working with partners and customers to deploy Sun RFID solution. Previously, he led Sun's effort in pervasive computing for small consumer devices, and the SunCluster product.

Prior to that, Bernard worked at the NASA Ames Research Center on distributed-memory operating systems for massively parallel supercomputers. He has numerous technical publications in distributed-memory operating systems and resource management systems. Bernard co-authored the "JXTA in a Nutshell" book by O'Reilly Press. He received his Ph.D. in Computer Sciences from the Florida State University.