Paris, Thursday, September 23 2004

Two young French companies team up to provide new generation contactless smart cards

ALIOS and InSeal launch secure, ready-to-use and evolutive smart cards at same price as memory cards

ALIOS and InSeal Contactless have signed an agreement that will allow ALIOS to provide ready-to-use dual and contactless smartcards on-demand, giving the company's customers more options in meeting their security needs and capability to build value-added applications.

ALIOS is a French smard card manufacturer, which is part of the same Group as CEV, created by Pascal Baisnée. Its objective is to provide personnalised dual and contactless microcontroller based smart cards with the same rapidity, flexibility and at the same cost as for memory cards, even for low volume.

InSeal is a company created in Marseille in 2003 by Philippe Frémy and Fabien Franceschini specialised in the design and development of innovative and competitive software embedded into contactless microcontrollers.

Under the agreement, ALIOS will have access to InSeal Operating System JayCOS available on various new generation microprocessors. JayCOS is an highly secure Operating System platform specifically designed for contactless. It is compliant with ISO-7816, 14443 A & B and 15693 standards. JayCOS allows users to create their own contactless applications, be they payment, access control, ID or Transport applications, and choose the most adapted and cost effective chips. Applications and OpCode can be downloaded even after card issuance like a JavaCard.

``Our technology and products coupled with ALIOS innovative packaging and distribution capabilities will give integrators and smart card VARs unlimited possibilities to easily developp and quickly deliver new contactless applications'' says Fabien Franceschini, VP Business Development at InSeal.

``Based on this multi-application technology we will give integrators and smartcard VARs the ability to implement new, state-of-the-art solutions to continue meeting their customers's needs'' says Christophe Cianchi, Managing Director of ALIOS.

About ALIOS

ALIOS manufactures all kind of cards, plastics, smartcards, contactless and dual technologies in any form factor (ID-1, Plug In SIM, key rings, …).

Thanks to the “Smart Cards On Demand” process developed and patented by ALIOS, it is now possible to optimize the cards supply chain. With deliveries from 1 single card if made necessary to a manufacturing plant local in sourcing when mass deployment is planned (MINI FAB offer), every project solution is tailored for a high service level at controlled costs.

ALIOS is the first ever worldwide market player to announce a “franchise” based model for MINI FAB. From now on, each local project or cards market large enough to fit into this model can be performed with local or national resources thanks to the ALIOS W-SCOD (Worldwide Smart Cards On Demand) program.

More on : www.alios-card.com
Contact : ccianchi@alios-card.com

About InSeal Contactless

InSeal designs, develops and builds innovative and competitive solutions for the deployment of world-class Contactless Smart Cards applications.

InSeal's expertise lies in the programming of the microprocessors that are embedded within smart cards, including the development Operating Systems and applications for Microcontroller based Contactless Smart Cards.

While proprietary operating systems still prevail in the smart card industry, InSeal has developped a generic, open, flexible and secure multi-purpose Operating System Plaform - with application downloading capabilities ¿ specifically designed for the Contactless market.

InSeal Contactless enables chip manufacturers, smart cards suppliers, VARs and integrators to deliver anywhere in the world any type of applications, such as ID documents (ICAO Passport, driving license), Secure Access Control, Payment or Transport. Relying on their comprehensive products and solutions portfolio, InSeal's customers can focus on optimizing their service offerings and revenue streams.

Contact: press@inseal.com