Oracle France SA duly announced its pact with Smart Card manufacturer Gemplus SA, Genenos (CI No 2,283), saying that it will market a relational version of the Smart Card technology used in public telephone and banking cards and developed by Gemplus. The new technology, called Card Query Language, replaces the flat file data format common to Smart Cards with a relational format, enabling information stored on the card’s microprocessor to be exchanged and read more easily by a variety of systems. Card Query Language is a derivative of Structured Query Language, SQL. This technology represents the same revolution that we had in the world of database management systems at the end of the 1970s, reckons Jean Margery, director of marketing for Oracle France. Company executives said they expect the improvement to spur the development of more complex applications of the Smart Card technology, including portable health dossiers, multi-purpose student cards and electronic wallets. Previous generations of Smart Cards posed problems of how to share and secure the data and how to integrate the card with other computer systems, said Pierre Peradinas, business and development advanced product manager for Gemplus. It was necessary to propose a new technology to exploit the card for new applications, Peradinas said. This technology relies on specific, defined view of the data. The doctor, for example, would see all of the data – dates of treatment, the problem and the medication – while the pharmacist would see only the medication prescribed. Gemplus gave a demonstration of stocking SQL data from an Oracle Unix server onto the 1Kb CQL card, using Oracle’s Forms 4.0, SQLNet and a PCMCIA card reader attached to the personal computer’s serial port. Margery said the company already has a budget for a project to use the technology to develop student cards. He added that he soon expects the marketing agreement to be extended worldwide. Gemplus, founded in 1988, has grown to sales of an estimated $125m this year, with activity in 10 countries, including the US. It has recorded an average profit margin during that period of approximately 10%. Total market for Smart Cards is tipped to reach 1,250m in 1995 from 260m in 1992. Telecommunications is the biggest market followed by banking, cable television and mobile telephony.
