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Frost & Sullivan Recognizes Sun Microsystems, Technology, Market Share in SIM and Smart ID Card Market
Each year, Frost & Sullivan presents this award to the company that has demonstrated excellence in business development, competitive strategy, customer satisfaction, and leadership within a particular Frost & Sullivan Industry Research Group (IRG). This award recognizes outstanding management, consistent growth, and the ability to offer high quality products and/or services as well as having a positive social and economic impact on local and national communities.
It also highlights exceptional customer service offerings and the expertise to take advantage of market changes by capturing and solidifying market presence, or the execution of innovative strategies within the existing competitive landscape.
This year, Sun Microsystems is presented this award in recognition of its continued emphasis on technology development and innovative product offerings within the Smart Card Market. Sun's holistic Java Card Platform offering focuses on delivering value to operators through the establishment of a standards-based smart card platform.
The undeniable uptake and market penetration in the last ten years of the Java Card Platform within mobile handsets SIMs, smart payment cards and Enterprise Smart IDs reflects a proven go to market strategy and continuous innovative roadmap. Frost and Sullivan acknowledges Sun as a market leader and major player in the smart card industry.
"Sun Microsystems is globally renowned for the Java Card product and has established itself as a leader in the smart cards market," says Frost & Sullivan Industry Analyst Shyam Krishnan. "In an economic scenario that has seen many companies lose technology partners and forecast a bleak future for products, Java Card from Sun Microsystems has emerged unscathed."
The original Java Card technology was introduced in 1997; and today, with over 5.5 billion cards deployed globally, Sun Microsystems has introduced its latest Java Card 3.0 specification. The year-over-year growth for Java Card over the past three years (2006, 2007 and 2008) has stood at close to 19 percent, defining the industry growth rates and also paving the way for future widespread deployment of the product line.
Valuable cost savings are delivered through a shortened development time due to Java Card's virtual machine. This virtual machine allows for the portability of applications regardless of card vendor or card chip-set. This is compared to native card OS platforms which lock card customers into a single specific vendor, specific hardware and specific development/management tools. Java Card application developers are able to rapidly develop applications independent of hardware concerns. This has been the key motivating factor driving Java Card adoption among telco operators as well as national and enterprise ID entities.
"Global telecommunications operators embraced Java Card SIMs because of its standard, non-hardware specific platform," notes Krishnan. "This led Java Card to become the market SIM leader, making up 50 percent of all global SIM shipments and over 90 percent of all EMEA, North America and South American SIM card shipments."
Smart Card-based passports, national IDs and civic IDs represent the largest annual growth by percentage within the smart card market. Java Card within federal, national and civic ID is represented in more countries than any other smart card platform. Driven by security and non-hardware specific requirements, notable Java Card-based ID success stories include the governments of Taiwan, Portugal, Belgium, Morocco, Oman, and UAE, as well as the United States Department of Defense and the United States Federal Government.
The new Java Card 3.0 specification was driven by telco operators requirements for a SIM that supports higher speeds and delivers web services to the mobile handset. Web services within the SIM are critical for telco operators to deliver brand-centric personalized services, independent of handset, to their subscribers. The 3.0 specification targets newer, faster, larger 32bit RISC architecture smart card chip sets. Java Card 3 platform delivers an inexpensive small, manageable, secure, personal web server that promises to be the cornerstone of trusted ID subscription services delivered through personal hardware devices.
Sun Microsystems supports independent Java Card developers and offers a forum for programmers to support one another. Sun Microsystems' position as a world technology leader is further strengthened by its belief that the customer is the most important entity for a business. Throughout various stages of the supply chain, Sun Microsystems ensures involvement and satisfaction of the customer, thereby ensuring strong and lasting relationships.
In addition, the company's vast network of partners enables enhancement of business processes, keeping it on the threshold of new technology developments. Extensive channel partners form an integral part of Sun Microsystems' sales network as well. Notable partners include global majors such as Accenture, SAP and Oracle. These dynamic technology partnerships enable it to maintain its USP of unparalleled quality and ease of application.
Overall, Sun Microsystems has been a brand associated with high levels of customer satisfaction, enhanced experiences and state-of-the-art features that come packaged and embedded with every product. For its long-standing technology partnerships, and focus on enhancing customer experiences and technology research, Sun Microsystems is a deserving recipient of the 2009 Frost & Sullivan Smart Cards Company of the Year Award.
Frost & Sullivan's Best Practices Awards recognize companies in a variety of regional and global markets for demonstrating outstanding achievement and superior performance in areas such as leadership, technological innovation, customer service, and strategic product development. Industry analysts compare market participants and measure performance through in-depth interviews, analysis, and extensive secondary research in order to identify best practices in the industry.
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