Microsoft Smart Card In Two Weeks
Ron,
It must be a secret. I won't say a word.
On to smart cards.......Microsoft smart card hits the street in 2 weeks...in Paris. Ooooh La La.
We know that the government has specified embedded biometrics in theirs.......and that Infinion and Motorola make the chips.
We need to watch these little chips....Amazing little buggers.
Could IDX be getting "embedded" with all the right people?
Get it?....."in bed"......."embedded"........Har har har.
Here is an article on Microsoft getting in the smart card game: I believe this was released Thursday.
Microsoft announces release date for Windows Card
Microsoft announced the general release date of its much-anticipated Smart Card for Windows operating system, promising to launch it Nov. 15 at the Carte '99 smart card convention in Paris, the site where a year ago the company plunged into the smart card industry.
It was at Cartes '98 that Microsoft originally announced it would design the operating system, making smart cards a key component of its strategy to extend its Windows dominance to smaller devices. While the company had promised the industry release of Smart Card for Windows before, it hadn't set an exact date. Besides, industry observers say, the Redmond, Wash.-based software company was merely trying to freeze the market, hoping prospective smart card issuers would postpone their projects until Windows Card arrives.
"The positive effect in creating (industry) momentum outweighed the paralyzing effect," says Peter Uehlecke, director of the North American smart card products for semiconductor manufacturer STMicroelectronics N.V.
Some chip, card and software vendors have had beta or test versions of the operating system for a few months. But on Nov. 15, any developer, provided he is willing to pay the licensing fee, will be able to use the operating system and write applications for it.
Microsoft announced the release date at its Smart Card '99 Business Development Conference last week in Redmond, where Chairman Bill Gates called smart card technology a key enabler for companies to create more secure and innovative products, anywhere, anytime and from any device.
The main application the company has targeted is network security and claims Windows-based smart cards will work "seamlessly" with Microsoft's planned Windows 2000 network operating system. But Microsoft executives at the conference also said they would push the software in the burgeoning mobile phone market. The toolkit for Windows-based Subscriber Identity Module (SIM) cards won't be available until early next year.
"Microsoft is interested because it's going to give them another point of entry to sell their stuff to a very fast-growing market, the mobile phone market in Europe," says Dirk Bout, senior industry analyst covering the GSM (Global System for Mobile Communications) market for research and consulting firm Dataquest.
Microsoft also hopes to sell its smart card software in the loyalty, health care and payment card markets.
bg |
