IDC Corp research says that the main vendors of Smart Cards in Western Europe expect their turnover to grow by more than 56% in 1998. Of those, microprocessor based cards are expected to top 308 million. IDC says the 20 year-old market has now evolved from straightforward memory applications to interactive application devices where the microprocessor carries the client application. It forecasts that over 1 billion microprocessor smart cards will be in circulation by the turn of the century. Electronic commerce and web, intranet, extranet and workgroup applications are seen as the main drivers. Java-based Smart Cards offer cheaper development costs, easy downloading, and multi-application cards, but by letting issuers choose between several suppliers they may reinforce the competition, says IDC. Contactless cards, though still in their infancy, eliminate current problems associated with contact smart cards, and could provide a market entre for new companies. IDC’s report costs $6,500.
