Gemplus SA has sold its majority stake in San Mateo Smart Card start-up Integrity Arts Inc to Sun Microsystems Inc’s JavaSoft division, in a move which Gemplus’ Smart card evangelist founder, chairman and chief executive Marc Lassus believes will best serve the company’s aim of driving the standarization of Smart Card operating environments. From Sun’s point of view, it adds Smart Card expertise to its Java Card initiative (CI No 3,056). Terms of the deal were not disclosed, but it looks like all Integrity’s 15 or so staff will join the JavaSoft division. Integrity Arts was set up in 1995 and specialises in the development of virtual machine and operating system technology for Smart Cards and development tools for creating Java applications for the Cards.
