Rise of the Aztec Code

Published 11 July 07 09:46 AM | Garrett Russell

The Aztec 2D bar code has been making waves lately, and we have had quite a few requests and sales to various parts of the world for our decoder.  Invented by HHP (Welch-Allyn) many years ago, Aztec is a public domain symbology.

Historically, Aztec is not as popular as Data Matrix (US/EMEA Markets), nor QR Code (Asia/Oceania Markets), but a recent surge in requests have come from Eastern European nations.  Ranking these three 2D symbologies, QR seems to be the best suited for most applications (especially cell phone) with its 3 square bulls-eye finders and embedded finders in larger QRs.  Aztec has a nice square bulls-eye finder smack in the middle of the code making it easy to identify. 

Is there a good reason for the surge in Aztec's usage in applications?   It appears that Russia is using it in Postal applications, and it has some usage in Document Imaging applications as well.  I would like to hear from you on other applications, or your thoughts on "why" there is a perceived surge.  We'll certainly keep tabs on other applications as we learn more from our customers,but for the most part, our customer's tend to be tight-lipped on how and where our software is used.  Why are they tight-lipped?  General feedback is that they feel they have their hands on the best decoder in the market, and they don't want their competition to know their secret.  This keeps us from expanding our partner list, as most want to remain anonymous.

 

 

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Comments

# Jamie Stallings said on November 28, 2007 03:09 PM:

Garrett As a manufacturer of RFID/Barcode printers and Integration Solutions, I also have noticed an increase in the use of Aztec especially within the US Healthcare vertical where it is quickly becoming the 2D symbology of choice. This, I believe, is due primarily to not needing a quite zone thereby allowing the stacking of the code which yields a greater first attempt read success rate. This is increasingly important when used in conjunction with a Patient ID band since stacking allows many instances of the code to be printed without regard to a quite zone. This increases the likelihood of a successful read without the need to disturb the patient or to contort the patient’s arm or band increasing efficiency. I also believe that the symbology chosen for the band will likely migrate across the facility’s system i.e. Pathology, Hematology, and EMR’s, and will increase the usage of Aztec into these departments as well. Although the amount of alpha characters the symbology can ‘hold’ is less than QR, 3067 vs 4296, which may offer some challenges in the Asian markets; it exceeds the capacity of Data Matrix giving it a competitive advantage in the US and EMEA markets. This coupled with the ability to disregard quite zones makes it perfect, not only for Healthcare but many applications as well.