This is big news for the Boston and MIT startup communities—and maybe for Silicon Valley tech observers too. Cambridge, MA-based ThingMagic said today its technology has been acquired by Trimble (NASDAQ: TRMB), a mobile and location tech firm based in Sunnyvale, CA. Terms of the deal weren’t given, and representatives from the companies weren’t immediately available to comment this morning.

The deal is a bit of a head-scratcher for me. Yes, things have been happening fast in the world of radio frequency identification (RFID)—this is the wireless communication technology that enables retailers to track inventory, mobile field workers to track tools, and hospitals and medical staff to track expensive equipment such as surgical tools. Earlier this month, I wrote about a resurgence in the RFID industry, as a few companies that endured the decade-long drought of slow adoption of the technology have started seeing some real growth in the past few months.

But why would ThingMagic sell at this point? The 10-year-old company has survived a long history of ups and downs in the marketplace, and was starting to see some gains in customers and revenue. The company makes software and hardware for RFID readers, and has a grand vision of helping create an “Internet of things,” whereby people can get information about objects in the real world around them, in real-time.

So far, all we’ve received officially is a canned statement from ThingMagic. “Our RFID excellence combined with Trimble’s global reach and domain expertise is a strong platform that can enable the next generation of RFID applications,” said CEO Tom Grant, in a statement.

How strong an exit is this deal for ThingMagic’s founders and investors (which have included Tudor Ventures, The Exxel Group, Cisco Systems, Morningside Technology Ventures, and In-Q-Tel)? What will become of ThingMagic’s Boston-area offices and staff (30-some employees)? It’s not clear whether this deal represents an asset sale, a technology integration, or some other arrangement. All we know from the release is that “the operating results of the acquired business [ThingMagic] will be reported within Trimble’s Advanced Devices segment.”

Trimble is known for its GPS and location-based technologies, which are used by mobile workers in the field for surveying, construction, agriculture, mapping, and other applications. So it sounds like ThingMagic’s RFID technology and expertise will be folded into some of those capabilities.

Indeed, ThingMagic co-founder Ravi Pappu may have hinted at the company’s broader future back in July. “It’s not just about the RFID,” he told me. “It’s about reaching out to the tag, reading data, and connecting to other systems, like Bluetooth, GPS, Wi-Fi…By combining those, you now have the Internet of things.”

We’ll have more on this story if we learn anything significant from the companies.

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Littleton, MA-based Wavemark, a maker of radio-frequency identification technologies for tracking hospital inventory, raised $3.9 million in an equity funding round, an SEC filing reveals. The filing indicates that the financing includes the conversion of some notes, and that the money raised will go to working capital for the company. Wavemark, whose RFID tags enable hospitals to track the usage, supply levels, and expiration dates of medial supplies, showed up in our list of June startup financings, with a $820,000 debt- and rights-based deal.

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San Diego-based Awarepoint says an independent medical laboratory has tested and validated its sterlizable RFID tags, which are designed to provide hospitals real time location tracking information about patients and medical equipment. The tests, which simulated clinical use, were done to show that Awarepoint’s battery-powered Radio Frequency Identity tags can be repeatedly cleaned, disinfected, and sterilized. As Bruce reported last month, the privately held company makes tags that operate with Awarepoint’s Zigbee-based Real-Time Location System (RTLS), which enables tracking the location of thousands of items in the network.

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Last month we reported that Seattle-based Impinj, a prominent maker of radio-frequency identification (RFID) technologies, had sold off its memory business to focus on its core RFID products. Now the company has announced that it is acquiring Intel’s RFID business, which specializes in making chips for smaller-size applications like handheld readers.

It’s a “huge step for Impinj,” said CEO William Colleran in a statement. Although financial terms were not disclosed, the deal sends RFID chips and patents, a handful of employees, and a couple dozen new customers worldwide to Impinj, in exchange for Intel gaining an unnamed equity stake in the startup.

Intel’s chips fill a clear need for Impinj, which focuses on the ultra-high-frequency band: they allow the company to sell RFID hardware not only for high-performance stationary devices (at gates, tollbooths, border crossings, and check-out lanes, say), but also for smaller, faster, and cheaper readers that can be carried around warehouses and stores or embedded in vehicles for keeping track of supplies, tools, or products. Starting this fall, for instance, new Ford trucks will have an option for a built-in RFID reader.

“For a while now, Intel has been looking for the right home for this product line. There’s a lot of satisfaction to see this business graduate,” says Kerry Krause, marketing director of Intel’s RFID business, based in Portland, OR, and now with Impinj. The deal “puts Impinj in a terrific position,” he adds, because it opens up “a much broader range of applications and a broader worldwide customer base.” Krause cites a list of new customers that includes ThingMagic in Cambridge, MA, Alien Technology in Morgan Hill, CA, South Korea-based Samsung and Ceyon, and Sense Technology and Hopela in China—with a couple dozen more customers in the works.

I remember covering RFID technologies five years ago, back when Gillette and Wal-Mart were just starting to buy into the tracking-tag approach, and I’ve been wondering how the industry has been doing. According to Krause, the main hurdles to adoption—such as agreeing on international standards and getting the right hardware—have largely been overcome. And startups like Impinj have been cashing in. Since 2000, Impinj has raised more than $100 million in venture funding from the likes of Arch Venture Partners, Madrona Venture Group, and Polaris Venture Partners. With today’s deal, the company is clearly positioning itself to be the RFID market leader in chips, readers, and other hardware—at least for now.

Mark Roberti, founder and editor of RFID Journal, speculates that Impinj might eventually get out of the RFID reader business and just sell the chips, once the market takes off. But that will be another two to three years or more, he says, because end users are still figuring out the physics and economics of RFID tags and readers.

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