MicroRead Chip Vaults Company to Industry’s Center Stage

GSMA MOBILE WORLD CONGRESS, BARCELONA, Spain – INSIDE Contactless, a leading provider of advanced, open-standard, contactless chip technologies, today announced that its MicroRead product was selected as the winner of the coveted GSM Association (GSMA) Mobile Innovation Global Award 2008 for Most Innovative Device-Centric Technology. The prestigious award showcases INSIDE’s innovation and increases awareness among leading industry investors and mobile operators of MicroRead as a technology with the potential to revolutionize mobile services. The award was presented on February 12 at the Annual Global Mobile Awards during GSMA’s Mobile World Congress in Barcelona, Spain, a global trade event featuring new wireless technologies and applications.

“The Award validates our approach to Near Field Communication and rewards many years of commitment to innovation, research and development,” said Remy de Tonnac, chief executive officer of INSIDE Contactless. “The MicroRead chip’s innovative NFC interface opens a wealth of opportunities for the whole mobile ecosystem to elevate device capabilities and new service offerings so that the consumer can enjoy a much richer mobile experience. We were honored to be chosen as a finalist and thrilled to win.”

The company’s MicroRead chip has been adopted by several major handset manufacturers across the globe. The NFC chip is also a key component of the GSMA’s Pay-Buy-Mobile initiative, a program that provides a single approach to enabling contactless payments using mobile phones. Mobile operators in Australia, France, Ireland, Korea, Malaysia, Norway, The Philippines, Singapore, Taiwan, Turkey, and the U.S. have implemented the MicroRead chip in handsets used in the Pay-Buy-Mobile program. Thanks to the MicroRead chip’s integration capabilities, mobile operators will also be able to accelerate deployment of innovative SIM-based payment applications tailored to their various markets.

INSIDE’s third-generation MicroRead RF chip, which was introduced on February 6, 2008, provides the broadest range of Near Field Communication (NFC) options that enable numerous new contactless applications. When incorporated into cell phones, PDAs or PCs, MicroRead chips enable them to operate both like RF readers and contactless smart cards or RFID tags. Handset manufacturers, mobile operators, and third-party application developers can now offer applications that range from access control, to merchandise tracking and logistics, to revitalizing legacy Radio Frequency Identification (RFID) applications. MicroRead products are unique in that they are self-powered with a battery-off mode, and they include the company’s innovative multi-host router technology, which allows secure elements, such as SIM, SE, or SD cards to be incorporated into applications.

The GSM Association (GSMA) is a global trade association representing 700 GSM mobile phone operators in 218 countries. Its members serve more than 2.5 billion users, approximately 83 percent of the world’s digital mobile market. Each year the organization awards its Annual Global Mobile Awards during the Mobile World Congress.