Seven leading players in the Near Field Communication (NFC) ecosystem, Ericsson, Gemalto, NXP, Oberthur Technologies, STMicroelectronics, Venyon (a company in the Giesecke & Devrient Group) and ViVOtech, have joined forces to form the MIFARE4Mobile™ Industry Group.
MIFARE4Mobile is a technology, which has been developed by NXP and is used to manage MIFARE-based services in NFC mobile devices, from the over-the-air installation to the end-user interaction via the user interface of the mobile phone. By bringing together some of the key players in the NFC ecosystem, the group will act as a platform to provide future direction, discuss experiences and share best practices to ensure evolution, interoperable development and implementation of the MIFARE4Mobile technology.
The aim of the group is to enable its members to collaborate and work together to standardize and advance the uniform management of MIFARE™ applications on NFC-enabled secure elements, such as mobile phones and SIM cards. Over the next few months, the MIFARE4Mobile industry group will further develop the specifications supporting MIFARE DESFire™ technology and multiple Trusted Service Managers.
"The creation of this new industry group provides further impetus to the development of NFC applications for mobile phones especially given MIFARE's reach as a key contactless platform," said Jonathan Collins, Principal Analyst, ABI Research. "As SIM-based NFC phones come to market, greater collaboration by all stakeholders to remove development and interoperability barriers in existing contactless infrastructures will help drive NFC adoption."
Nav Bains, Senior Director Mobile Money, GSM Association, commented, "Increased collaboration by some of NFC's most influential stakeholders will support the creation and facilitate the integration of business for the mobile network industry related to NFC-based services."