If your life is anything like mine, January has left you little time to bask in the afterglow of a merry and profitable holiday season. I've already turned my attention to pondering the question: What new retail innovations will 2005 bring? OK, so it's my job to think about future innovation, but judging from the droves of retailers that braved the bitter Manhattan winter to check out NRF's Big Show last week, I think most retailers have the same question on their minds. The NRF show also provided some key clues to what 2005 will bring, including:

• Retailers' tactical questions. To be honest, I wasn't exactly blown away by the number of new technologies that made their debut at the NRF show. In fact, most products that were featured on the bustling expo floor -- including self-checkout solutions, RFID scanners, supply chain optimization tools, and a multitude of mobile devices -- have made several appearances before. But what was new was the number of hard-hitting, practical, and pointed questions that retailers had -- a sign that 2005 just might be the year that these semi-new technologies actually make it into more mainstream stores and supply chains. And it looks like they'll have the funds to do so: thirty-six percent of North American retailers will increase IT spending in 2005, and retailers that are increasing spending will do so at a rate that's well above other industries'.

• Wal-Mart's focus on suppliers. Linda Dillman, Wal-Mart's CIO, took the stage on Monday morning -- along with her counterparts from Metro AG and Tesco -- to talk RFID. Though the RFID story is nothing new, there was an even heavier emphasis on the promise of sharing data with suppliers. Why? To highlight the benefits that RFID can bring to consumer goods manufacturers. This is just a taste of a bigger trend we expect for 2005: expanding the scope -- and inherent benefits -- of collaborating and sharing supply chain data between retailers and suppliers. Keep an eye out for an upcoming report from Christine Spivey Overby that explores this topic and makes some hard calls on how to make it a reality and move way beyond global data synchronization.

• IBM's partner-centric booth. You couldn't miss IBM's massive booth or the swarm of IBM reps clad in black and beige outfits milling about. But what you could have missed -- if you didn't take a closer look -- was that many of those reps weren't even IBM employees; they were IBM partners. The world of Innovation Networks was alive and well as retailers were guided through demos of multistep processes like supply chain management, as well as in-store shopping that featured solutions from several partners, including SAP, ProfitLogic, Cuesol, and Active Decisions. Why does this matter to retailers? As more of these ecosystems evolve, the hodgepodge of point inventions will give way to more innovative end-to-end retail solutions.

• Carrie Johnson's session's standing-room-only attendance. When I showed up 5 minutes late to Carrie Johnson's "State Of Retailing Online" session, I was forced to stand -- along with several other tardy attendees -- as event personnel rushed to add more chairs. Between the crowd of retailers scribbling notes as Carrie walked through online retail stats and eCommerce execs from Best Buy, Liz Claiborne, and Saks Fifth Avenue doling out success stories from the extremely healthy online holiday season, I think it's safe to predict that 2005 will bring several new eCommerce and multichannel innovations.

Research Referenced In This Issue IBM Formalizes Its Software Innovation Networks (36252) Innovation Networks (34580)    Innovations In Online Retail (36067) RadioShack Grows With Supply Chain Influence (36264) Retailers' IT Spending Outlook For 2005 (35565) Revealing RFID's Benefits In Consumer Goods (34574) Software Innovation Networks Go Vertical (35678) Trends 2005: Enterprise Mobility (35606) Trends 2005: SCM Market Outlook (35393) Wal-Mart's RFID Efforts: No Big Bang, But Good Progress (36124)

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