If you throw all the products we buy and the services we use in one basket, then add up the price tag, that's the Gross Domestic Product, which is the primary metric economists use to assess the economic health of a country or region.

The easy part of calculating GDP is the calculation itself: C+I+G+(X-M)=GDP. Got it? No? Well, add Consumption, Investment by companies, Government purchases, and then take the product of eXports (calling it 'E' would lack sexiness) minus iMports ('I' was taken). Viola! GDP.

Still don't get it? Well, knowing the components helps. Consumption is the biggest component, and it's a tally of the cost of all the goods and services we buy. Investment is what companies spend on the real assets they own, plus the value of the inventory that we haven't gobbled up through consumption. Government purchases are what the Feds pay money for (whether it be highways or fighter jets, though big social programs, like welfare, aren't counted). And then we calculate the difference between the goods and services we¿re sending to other countries and the stuff we're bringing in.

Good. That explains it, except there's a catch. Inflation has a habit of distorting the numbers, so economists talk about either Nominal GDP or Real GDP. In fact, Real GDP isn't necessarily "real" for most folks, since it takes any inflation out. Nominal GDP includes the effects of inflation. (There's something called the implicit price deflator which is a calculation using the two, but we'll spare you the details.)

So, now that we know GDP, why do we want to? Well, it's good to compare different markets. And watching the trend shows whether a given economy is growing (good), stagnating (not so good), or shrinking (very not so good). When GDP goes down two quarters in a row, we're officially in a recession.

For the record, GDP is released at the end of each month, with most reporting ¿preliminary¿ data for the previous month. But you won't get final GDP numbers for the fourth quarter of a year until the very end of the first quarter of the next year. After all, it's not an easy number to calculate.

Home / Markets / Industries / Industrials

Wednesday, July 02, 2008

Xerox Selects I.D. Systems' PowerKeyPLUS for Wireless Industrial Fleet Management

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Comtex

HACKENSACK, N.J., Jul 2, 2008 (PrimeNewswire via COMTEX) ----I.D. Systems, Inc. (Nasdaq:IDSY), a leading provider of wireless asset management solutions, today announced that it will implement its PowerKeyPLUS(tm) wireless industrial vehicle monitoring system for Xerox Corporation (NYSE:XRX). The system will be deployed on a fleet of forklifts at a Xerox distribution center in Ohio. The order was facilitated by Hy-Tek Material Handling, Inc., a national provider of integrated systems solutions and an Ohio-based dealer of Yale(r) industrial lift trucks.

PowerKeyPLUS(tm) provides vehicle access control, safety checklists and impact sensing -- the most popular functions for managing the inherent safety and maintenance issues associated with industrial vehicles. PowerKeyPLUS(tm) is a competitively priced standalone system suitable for any fleet size, small or large. In addition, PowerKeyPLUS(tm) serves as a platform for seamless expansion to I.D. Systems' industry-leading, full-featured Wireless Asset Net(r) fleet management technology.

Xerox is the world's leading document management technology and services enterprise, providing the industry's broadest portfolio of color and black-and-white document processing systems and related supplies, as well as document management consulting and outsourcing services. Xerox is a Fortune 150 company, with fiscal 2007 revenues of more than $17 billion.

"We are very pleased to add another world-class company like Xerox to our growing customer base," said Peter Fausel, I.D. Systems' executive vice president of sales, marketing and customer service. "We look forward to introducing our best-practice technology to Xerox to help them manage the intrinsic safety, productivity, and operational cost issues associated with fleets of material handling vehicles."

About Wireless Industrial Vehicle Management

Wireless industrial vehicle management systems improve workplace safety and security by restricting vehicle access to trained, authorized operators, providing electronic vehicle safety inspection checklists, and sensing vehicle impacts. These systems also reduce fleet maintenance costs by automatically uploading vehicle data, reporting vehicle problems electronically, scheduling maintenance according to actual vehicle usage rather than by calendar or manual data entry, and helping determine the optimal economic time to replace equipment. In addition, wireless fleet management systems help improve productivity by establishing accountability for use of equipment, ensuring equipment is in the proper place at the right time, streamlining work flow through automated messaging, and providing management with unique metrics on -- and controls over -- equipment utilization.

About I.D. Systems

Based in Hackensack, New Jersey, with European business offices in Dusseldorf, Germany, I.D. Systems, Inc. is a leading provider of wireless solutions for managing and securing high-value enterprise assets. These assets include industrial vehicles, such as forklifts and airport ground support equipment, and rental vehicles. The Company's patented Wireless Asset Net(r) system, which utilizes radio frequency identification, or RFID, technology, addresses the needs of organizations to control, track, monitor and analyze their assets. For more information about I.D. Systems, please visit www.id-systems.com.

About Hy-Tek Material Handling

Hy-Tek Material Handling, Inc. is celebrating its 45th anniversary as a leading integrated systems supplier, providing trucks, conveyor, storage and software solutions engineered to meet the high-productivity demands of today's economy. Hy-Tek is employee-owned and its headquarters in Columbus, Ohio, along with branches in Florence, Kentucky, Cleveland, Ohio and Indianapolis, Indiana, have completed systems projects in 40 states. For more information, please visit www.hy-tek.net.

"Safe Harbor" statement:

This press release contains forward looking statements that are made pursuant to the safe harbor provisions of the Private Securities Litigation Reform Act of 1995. Forward-looking statements include statements with respect to our beliefs, plans, objectives, goals, expectations, anticipations, assumptions, estimates, intentions, and future performance, and involve known and unknown risks, uncertainties and other factors, which may be beyond our control, and which may cause our actual results, performance or achievements to be materially different from future results, performance or achievements expressed or implied by such forward-looking statements. All statements other than statements of historical fact are statements that could be forward-looking statements. These forward-looking statements are subject to risk and uncertainties, including, but not limited to, future economic and business conditions, the loss of any of the Company's key customers or reduction in the purchase of its products by any such customers, the failure of the market for the Company's products to continue to develop, the inability to protect the Company's intellectual property, the inability to manage the Company's growth, the effects of competition from a wide variety of local, regional, national and other providers of wireless solutions and other risks detailed from time to time in the Company's filings with the Securities and Exchange Commission, including the Company's annual report on Form 10-K for the year ended December 31, 2007. These risks could cause actual results to differ materially from those expressed in any forward looking statements made by, or on behalf of, the Company. The Company assumes no obligation to update the information contained in this press release.

This news release was distributed by PrimeNewswire, www.primenewswire.com

SOURCE: I.D. Systems, Inc.

I.D. Systems, Inc. For Financial Press Ned Mavrommatis, Chief Financial Officer
   ned@id-systems.com For Trade Press Greg Smith, Vice President Marketing gsmith@id-systems.com 201-996-9000 Fax: 201-996-9144

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