CARTES 97 – Java Card Forum consults with Smart Card Issuers

Paris (France), October the 15th, 1997 – For the first time, the Java Card Forum, a consortium of Smart Card manufacturers committed to the Java™ Card standard, have consulted with industry-leading Smart Card issuers to further stimulate the growing market for Java-based smart card applications. At its recent meeting in Paris, the Java Card Forum for the first time included in its discussions “Strategic Partners” from 3 major industry sectors: Banking/Finance, represented by American Express, Citibank, Banksys, Barclay’s, GIE Carte Bancaire, Mondex and Visa; Information Technology, represented by Hewlett-Packard and NTT Data; and Telecommunications, represented by Swisscom and Telecom Finland.

The Strategic Partners provided input to the Forum members (Bull, De La Rue, Gemplus, Giesecke & Devrient, Hitachi, IBM, Keycorp, Schlumberger and Toshiba) regarding technical issues and industry-specific extensions that could be made to the Java Card specification. The goal of involving the industry partners is to ensure interoperabliity of Java Card applications across all industry segments, thereby extending the Write Once, Run Anywhere™ promise of Java to the world of smart cards and smart card readers. The use of Java on smart cards will mean that all cards can be used in any type of card reader terminal, from automatic teller machines to cell phones to computer system access devices.

Also at the Paris meeting, the Java Card Forum Technical Committee provided its input to Sun on version 2.0 of the Java Card specification, which was posted at http://java.sun.com for public review on 12 September.

To reflect the growing demand for Java-based smart cards, the Java Card Forum plans to expand its Strategic Partner Program in the future to include representatives from the Health Care, Television Broadcasting and Transportation industries.
The Java Card members are present at the Cartes ’97 exhibition in Paris 15-17 October and will demonstrate their most recent Java Card implementations.

Contacts info:
Presse contact Bull CP8
Ms Dominique MERCIER
Tel: +33 (0)1 39 66 45 20
Fax:+33 (0)1 39 66 44 02
E.mail: DOMINIQUE.MERCIER-CHEVALIER@BULL.NET

Press contacts Gemplus
EUROPE
Ms Flavie GIL
Tel: +33 (0)4 42 36 56 83
Fax: +33 (0)4 42 36 51 17
E.mail: flavie.gil@ccmail.edt.fr
USA
Ms Patricia NEPTUNE / Neptune Group Int’l Inc
Tel: +1 203 221 2820
Fax: +1 203 221 2825
E.mail: pneptune@neptunegp.com
ASIA
Singapore – Ms Tarvinder DHILLON
Tel: +65 771 91 49
Fax: +65 773 0648
E.mail: tarvinder.dhillon@ccmail.edt.fr