Research and development, both basic and applied, are top priorities at Gemalto. Spending on R&D and innovation represents a significant portion of our income. Gemalto also has a top-flight team of 1300 engineers, including internationally renowned experts in security and cryptography.
 

To maintain their focus on our clients’ needs, our R&D teams work in 11 centers strategically located in key zones around the world.
 

Gemalto has over 5000 patents and patents applications – a real tribute to our long-term record in innovation, and a powerful heritage from which to achieve our overriding goal of anticipating and fulfilling our clients’ future needs.
 

Creating a major team with far-sighted ambitions

The events of 2006 enabled us to assemble a very significant team of researchers and engineers with outstanding expertise. Combining the inherited wealth of talent and know-how from nearly 30 years of innovation and development clearly positions us as a leader in security and identity as applied to personal devices. Part of our focus was then to ensure we made the most of this potential, getting the best from all our practices and technologies. In particular we worked to improve our overall performance, especially the time-to-market of our innovations.
 

We have also been developing a new company-wide process to drive the creation and implementation of new business opportunities, inviting all employees to participate in the creative process, and linking this to greater discipline in analysis and delivery.
 

Recognized as leading experts in digital security, our research engineers published several dozen articles in scientific journals in 2006. In addition they served on 30 scientific conference program committees.  

Customer-driven R&D

Our engineers’ efforts in 2006 were primarily focused on convergence, and the ways in which this presents new opportunities we can deliver to our clients. The rapid evolution and interconnection of mobile telecommunication, Internet, banking and contactless technologies are providing innumerable possibilities for improving the security, convenience and experience of our solutions for end-users, and our goal is to be at the forefront of these developments.
 

We demonstrated this pioneering spirit in our development of solutions for mobile TV based on broadcast standards, and have already participated in several pilots. We are also at the forefront of mobile contactless payment, enhancing both the user experience and the security of the transactions.
 

After considerable long-term commitment, we were also proud to participate actively in 2006 in the launch of Microsoft’s new Vista OS. Our .Net solution provides an easy, user-friendly way to secure access to networks.