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 Gemplus and
Bell ID sign worldwide reseller agreement for smart card management in corporate security applications
Combined Solution Offers a Comprehensive System for Dynamic Personalization, Issuance, And Management of Multi-purpose Employee Badges Within Large Corporations
Luxembourg, Horsham, PA (December 9, 2003) – Gemplus International S.A. (Euronext: LU0121706294 – GEM and NASDAQ: GEMP), the world’s leading provider of smart card solutions, today announced a global reseller agreement with Bell ID, the designer and supplier of ANDiS© smart card management technology and a subsidiary of London-based Bell Group plc, to deliver a scaleable, flexible, and customized smart card management system to enable governments and large corporations to issue secure multi-purpose cards to their employees.
The worldwide reseller agreement brings together two industry leaders: Gemplus as the number one producer of smart cards worldwide, and Bell ID as the market-leading supplier of card management solutions. Gemplus will market and resell Bell ID’s ANDiS© smart card management technology as a key subsystem offer within its recently launched SafesITe solution. The reciprocal agreement also anticipates Bell ID reselling Gemplus’s SafesITe system on a worldwide basis. SafesITe includes smart cards, readers, software, and services – all of the components necessary for deploying multi-purpose smart cards within the enterprise.
“This agreement with Gemplus brings together a superior level of technical knowledge and expertise from two world-renowned market leaders,” said Hywel Davies, Chairman of Bell ID. “We look forward to working with Gemplus to provide government institutions and enterprises with a customized, flexible, and full-featured solution.”
Results from Gemplus’s recent U.S. Corporate Security Systems Study indicate an increased interest from Fortune 500 companies to deploy a single token for both physical and logical security. Smart cards respond to this challenge by offering a versatile platform to combine building access, network security and e-purse applications on one card. Deploying such a multi-functional employee badge requires a flexible system for issuing and managing identity credentials.
“Issuance and management of multi-purpose employee badges can be quite challenging, especially with a large-scale deployment that incorporates several different applications. Our clients need an open and scalable solution to manage badges through their lifecycle without having to re-issue cards every time they need to be updated,” said Olivier Chavrier, Marketing Director of Gemplus ID & Security solutions. “They also need to be able to block and recreate cards quickly and conveniently when they are lost or stolen. Bell ID’s ANDiS© technology carries a number of significant references from around the world. Gemplus is proud to work alongside them to revolutionize the corporate security market.”
The combined solution, SafesITe card manager Pro, enables card issuers to centrally manage the complete life cycle for large numbers of smart cards, cardholders, and on-card applications, including post-issuance capabilities. The system allows companies to reinforce internal security policies and reduce administration costs by issuing badges capable of performing multiple functions with optimal security, including secure logon to PCs, networks and VPNs, digital signatures, contactless access to buildings, and vending machine purchases.
To learn more about Gemplus’s SafesITe solution and SafesITe card manager Pro, as well as Bell ID’s ANDiS© solution, please visit the Gemplus booth #304 at Inside ID 2003 in Washington, D.C. from December 9-10.
About Gemplus
Gemplus International S.A. (Euronext: LU0121706294 - GEM and NASDAQ: GEMP) is the world’s leading player in the smart card industry in both revenue and total shipments (source 2002: Gartner-Dataquest, Frost & Sullivan, Datamonitor). Gemplus has the largest R&D team, unrivalled experience, and an outstanding track record of technological innovation.
Gemplus helps its clients offer an exceptional range of portable and personalized solutions that bring security and convenience to people’s lives. These include Mobile Telecommunications, Public Telephony, Banking, Retail, Transport, Identity, WLAN, Pay-TV, e-government, access control, and a wealth of other applications.
Gemplus’s revenue in 2002 was 787 million Euros.
www.gemplus.com
About Bell ID
From its base in Rotterdam, The Netherlands, Bell ID B.V. has developed ANDiS©, its open software platform covering a complete spectrum of turnkey products and services for multi-application smart card and key management schemes. Bell ID B.V. is a subsidiary of Bell Group plc, listed on the London Stock Exchange.
©2003 Gemplus. All rights reserved. Gemplus, the Gemplus logo, and SafesITe are trademarks and service marks of Gemplus S.A. and are registered in certain countries. All other trademarks and service marks, whether registered or not in specific countries, are the property of their respective owners.
Some of the statements contained in this release constitute forward-looking statements. These statements relate to future events or our future financial performance and involve known and unknown risks, uncertainties, and other factors that may cause our or our industry's actual results, levels of activity, performance or achievements to be materially different from any future results, levels of activities, performance, or achievements expressed or implied by such forward-looking statements. Actual events or results may differ materially. Although we believe that the expectations reflected in the forward-looking statements are reasonable, we cannot guarantee future results, levels of activity, performance or achievements. Factors that could cause actual results to differ materially from those estimated by the forward-looking statements contained in this release include, but are not limited to: trends in wireless communication and mobile commerce markets; our ability to develop new technology, and the effects of competing technologies developed and expected intense competition generally in our main markets; profitability of our expansion strategy; challenges to or loss of our intellectual property rights; our ability to establish and maintain strategic relationships in our major businesses; our ability to develop and take advantage of new software and services; and the effect of future acquisitions and investments on our share price. Moreover, neither we nor any other person assumes responsibility for the accuracy and completeness of such forward-looking statements. The forward-looking statements contained in this release speak only as of this release. We are under no duty to update any of the forward-looking statements after this date to conform such statements to actual results or to reflect the occurrence of anticipated results.
For further information, contact:
Kerry Butler
Gemplus Americas PR Manager
Tel : +1 (215) 390 2840
Email: kerry.butler@gemplus.com
Oliver Burke
Bell ID- Rotterdam
Tel +31 10 885 1010
Email: o.burke@bellid.com
Harjiv Singh
Edelman – New York
Tel: +1 (212) 704 8186
Email: harjiv.singh@edelman.com
Tim Harrris
Bell Group plc - London
Tel: +44 208 5392
Email: Timh@bellsec.com
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