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Microsoft Plays Smart Cards

Upcoming cards will help run your mobile phone, hold your medical history, or do whatever else developers can dream up.

By Chris Yurko, PCWorld   

Since the launch of Windows for Smart Cards last November, the company has taken orders for 15 million "solutions" from companies that manufacture the programmable pieces of plastic, the company announced February 1 at the GSM World Congress in Cannes, France.

"People are really embracing this," says Michele Holguin, a spokesperson for Microsoft.

Like its desktop predecessors, Windows for Smart Cards provides a platform for many uses. The cards contain an 8-bit microprocessor and can hold 16KB of data, so that they can not only store data but run applications.

While today you might bloat your wallet carrying multiple cards for debit, insurance, telephone, and frequent flyer miles, Windows for Smart Cards technology could store all this data on a single card. You also could add, for example, your medical history. "They can hold much more information than you're carrying around right now," Holguin said.

Besides data storage, other applications include identity authentication, where the smart card and a pin number would be used to access a corporate network rather than typing in a user ID and password, potentially thwarting hackers. "It's one way to authenticate who you really are," Holguin said.

Windows, Phone Home

And on Tuesday, French smart card manufacturer Gemplus struck a deal with Microsoft to embed the software in cards that add tricks to GSM (Global System for Mobile Communications) mobile phones.

Microsoft demonstrated a prototype extension to its Exchange messaging server software which, in conjunction with a small client script stored in the prototype card, lets users log into the server and read their e-mail on a standard mobile phone handset.

Until recently, the operating system in a GSM card mattered little--the card "was just a security token to protect the subscription from fraud," said Gemplus Market Communications Manager Tim Baker. But now that the GSM phones are adding services such as e-mail access or Internet browsing, the process of developing new software has become a bottleneck, he said.

Windows for Smart Cards will speed the development of new services, Baker said. "Microsoft has a system that can develop [Visual Basic] apps, and they have millions of copies [of Visual Basic] out there," he said.

Industry estimates predict the market for smart card units will exceed 1 billion by 2001, according to the company. So far, more than 90 software companies are developing applications for Windows for Smart Cards. Microsoft also says that 1,500 software developers have been trained to use the technology.

Peter Sayer of the IDG News Service contributed to this story.