Palo
Alto, Calif. October 4, 2006 — Frost
& Sullivan selected StepNexus as the recipient of the 2006 Frost
& Sullivan Award for Product Innovation in the smart cards platforms
market for its inventive STEP-enabled Nectar.NET platform for smart cards. This
product bridges the gap between the information technology industry and the
smart card industry.
Nectar.NET
is a subset of Microsoft’s ECMA/ISO .NET platform designed for smart cards,
enabling smart cards to become an integral part of the IT infrastructure and
even act as a stand-alone server. Cards
built on Nectar.NET were initially deployed at Microsoft through a licensed
manufacturing solution provider, and StepNexus is working toward general
commercial release with additional licensee manufacturers.
The next
release of the Nectar.NET platform is compliant with StepNexus’ STEP™ (Secure
Trusted Environment Provisioning) secure issuance and content distribution
standard methods. Nectar.NET joins the
MULTOS operating system as the second industry-standard STEP-compliant
operating system, enabling use of STEP device management standards and methods
for device issuer control and application provider privacy, along with STEP’s content distribution paradigm for updating
distributed devices. More than 100
issuance partners currently provide issuance services for STEP-enabled devices.
The IT industry is particularly
well-suited for these benefits given the high likelihood of integrating and
post-issuing .NET applications as IT organizations incrementally roll out new
card functionality across enterprises.
“The new
scheme has the security of the MULTOS platform as well as the flexibility of
the .NET platform,” says Frost & Sullivan Research Analyst George C
Paul. “With the addition of the Nectar.NET platform, the StepNexus scheme is
the only scheme in the smart card platforms market that is able to provide
this.”
The
Nectar.NET platform for smart cards includes cryptographic functions for
encryption, digital signatures, hashing, and random number generation and has
support for all major types of symmetric and asymmetric algorithms. Applications
on the smart cards can encrypt data, which can be decrypted by web applications
without the use of middleware and vice versa.
Cryptographic capabilities of the smart cards can also complement
web-based applications to provide an end-to-end security solution.
Additionally,
Nectar.NET integrates into the Visual Studio development environment, providing
a development environment for the smart card industry that taps into a large
base of existing Visual Studio developers.
IT organizations will be able to develop applications in any Visual
Studio supported language, easing dependence on non-standard development
environments. Microsoft’s strong
position in the IT industry makes the Nectar.NET platform particularly amenable
to integration into existing systems.
Combined
with a StepServer, Nectar.NET becomes a much more
versatile platform that provides complete card control by the issuer, with
assured protection of content to any additional application providers.
“The
development of a common framework between STEP and Global Platform, a platform
with an open standard, would be the beginning of a road map for the global
integration of the various smart card platforms. It would bring out a common
specification for the smart card industry and the issuers can then choose the
platform that suits their needs rather than being limited to the platform that
is compatible with the vendor’s hardware.”
Each
year Frost & Sullivan presents this Award to a company that has
demonstrated excellence in new products and technologies within their industry.
The recipient company has shown innovation by launching a broad line of
emerging products and technologies.
Frost
& Sullivan Best Practices Awards recognize companies in a variety of
regional and global markets for demonstrating outstanding achievement and
superior performance in areas such as leadership, technological innovation,
customer service, and strategic product development. Industry analysts compare
market participants and measure performance through in-depth interviews,
analysis, and extensive secondary research in order to identify best practices
in the industry.
About StepNexus
StepNexus
provides pioneering technology solutions for securing devices and distributing
protected content. StepNexus governs the
STEP™ (Secure Trusted Environment Provisioning) standard methods for secure
device issuance and control, secure package content loading and distribution,
and application privacy management, and offers services and products associated
with STEP and STEP-enabled platforms.
StepNexus also works with partners that implement device operating
systems and applications to STEP specifications, including Nectar.NET
implementers, the industry-backed MULTOS Consortium, and other STEP-enabled
solution providers. StepNexus ensures
that devices meet specific security and interoperability requirements to
receive STEP security validations.
StepNexus has more than 100 issuance partners and has enabled more than
65 million STEP-secured devices among governments, financial institutions,
mobile carriers, and enterprise IT organizations, including notable projects of
the Hong Kong National ID, Saudi Residential ID, and Turkish Military ID.
About Frost & Sullivan
Frost & Sullivan, a global growth
consulting company, has been partnering with clients to support the development
of innovative strategies for more than 40 years. The company's industry
expertise integrates growth consulting, growth partnership services, and
corporate management training to identify and develop opportunities. Frost & Sullivan serves an
extensive clientele that includes Global 1000 companies, emerging companies,
and the investment community by providing comprehensive industry coverage that
reflects a unique global perspective and combines ongoing analysis of markets,
technologies, econometrics, and demographics. For more information, visit www.awards.frost.com or www.smartcards.frost.com
Contact:
Stacie Jones
210.247.2450
Stacie.jones@frost.com