Inside Contactless has been recognized by Frost & Sullivan with the 2007 Global Award for Industry Innovation and Advancement in the field of contactless technologies. The company received this award for its demonstrated excellence in all areas of technology innovation, advancement of the industry through research, strategy development and the ability to conceptualize industry activities, while successfully addressing customer needs.

 

"Dedicated exclusively to contactless technology, Inside Contactless is a fabless company that designs high performance chipsets and ensures secure, fast as well as reliable transactions in payment, access control, transport and electronic identification," notes Frost & Sullivan Research Analyst Nikita Seth, in a Friday statement.

 

"Currently, the company is working on creating products that integrate new capabilities into smartcards, mobile phones, point of sales terminals, PCs and consumer electronic devices."

 

With a strong product and service offering in the NFC arena, Inside Contactless offers a product portfolio that includes ‘PicoRead’ and ‘MicroRead.’ Both offer easy integration of contactless chips into devices; they comply with international standard protocols and are equipped to communicate with contactless interfaces with existing readers worldwide.

'MicroRead' is an NFC chip that can be incorporated into mobile phones, PDAs or PCs, to make them operable as RF readers and contactless smartcards or RF tags.

 

"It has the advantage of being a low-cost, low-power, versatile solution, something that the industry and its participants seek when adopting a new, emerging technology," remarked Seth. "It has cryptographic functions and is designed on the 'Single Wire Protocol' (SWP) interface with the SIM card."

 

Inside Contactless is currently working closely with Gemalto (News - Alert) to define SWP, the new interface between the SIM card and the NFC chip. The company announced early this year its cooperation with Infineon. This collaboration aims to combine the NFC capacities of Inside Contactless and Infineon’s secured connectivity technology, which will bring banking services to converge on the handset.

 

For contactless payment ability, the company’s MicroPass solution is primarily available in the United States. Support is extended to programs in Canada, the Philippines, Australia and Guatemala.

 

The solution is available from major card manufacturers in the U.S., including Gemalto, G&D, Oberthur, CPI and PPP. There are 11 Visa products and 9 MasterCard card products available from the channel partners of Inside Contactless, which contain MicroPass. The solution has also been the basis for the only qualified Discover Zip implementation.

 

Inside Contactless has also recently announced a toolkit that will allow for value-added applications in the areas of transit, access control and retailer loyalty that can be developed alongside open standard bank card payments. The company is the first in the industry to announce such capability for contactless payments.

 

"To conclude, the industry recognizes the company's product offerings which are guided through principles benefiting the whole ecosystem," stated Seth. "The innovative features which include the SIM-friendly architecture, optimized silicon design, mobile-friendly integration and consistent application development give it a strategic positioning that sets it apart from the rest of the participants."

 

Contactless technology has been in huge demand as our society continues on the “always-on” mentality, we have to have the latest and greatest and it has to be in real-time and fast. At the same time, we also demand security and Inside Contactless and other companies are working to ensure its solutions meet the functionality and security demands of the market. To receive recognition from a firm such as Frost & Sullivan will position Inside Contactless very well for market leadership.

 

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