2012 has been hailed by the media, technology companies and consumers as a turning point for mobile NFC technology. While we receive announcements every day regarding joint ventures or research figures, until now progress has been undeniably slow. Could 2012 still be the turning point?
Since the start of the year, Bell ID has seen a significant rise in interest concerning our Trusted Service Manager (TSM) and near field communication (NFC) solutions. The majority of these business opportunities are related to companies looking to become a TSM in order to take advantage of the commercial benefits and opportunities this position offers in the global mobile services ecosystem.
This considerable increase in activity shows that the industry has woken up to mobile NFC and the essential role this will play long-term in delivering convenient and innovative services to consumers. Industry awareness means companies are setting budgets, investing money and appointing project managers; momentum is growing. The trend is mirrored by the number of joint ventures and collaborative projects that are launching: Isis, Cityzi, Project Oscar, Enstream and TRAVIK (formerly known as Six Pack) are some of the most notable instances.
As the drive towards mobile NFC continues, I predict that Bell ID will begin to receive increasing interest in TSM cloud services. Consumers will soon have multiple NFC enabled devices – smartphones, laptop and tablet for example – and will want to switch seamlessly between them, using one set of credentials rather than a number of different ones. Storing this information securely in the cloud will provide even greater consumer convenience and control.
So while there has been much talk about the deployment of NFC for some time, our business operations demonstrate that 2012, without doubt, is the time for action.
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