SD Card Group Sets Up Mobile Taskforce

At the conclusion of its 2004 General Meeting in Kauai, Hawaii this week, the SD Card Association (SDA) announced that it finalized specifications enabling mobile e-commerce and the downloading of map information to SD Memory Cards, and has formed a new Mobile Phone Task Force. These moves are part of ongoing association efforts to aggressively expand the capabilities of SD Memory Cards in mobile devices, and build on the format's growing dominance in digital camera, camcorder, PDA, printers, and other product applications. The SD Memory Card held the top position in market share for the months of October and November 2003, capturing 41.8 percent of the U.S. semi-conductor memory market in November.

The new Mobile Commerce specification, based on extensive cooperation with the 5C's Mc-Ex (Mobile Commerce Extension Standard) Specification for mobile commerce, will greatly expand the already broad universe of applications for the SD Memory Card format by adding "smart card" security and other new functionalities based on a combination of flash memory and the smart card module. This will allow the SD Card, including miniSD, to enable secure transactions through its authentication functions such as PKI (Public Key Infrastructure) authentication or PIN authentication in a Smart Card OS independent environment. This will also support security specifications such as OMA (Open Mobile Alliance), without affecting SD Memory Card performance.

The new Mobile Commerce specification will target three key market segments: Personal Transactions such as banking, stock trades, and micropayments; Personal Entertainment such as content download and navigation; and the Mobile Workforce Applications for industries such as medical, insurance, real estate and government sectors.

The SD-Maps specification allows SD-enabled mobile devices to download, store and display map information for a wide variety of uses, to include: in-vehicle navigation systems, mobile phone navigation applications, and location-based information systems. Users of such mobile devices will be able to build, view and print map databases, store personal information, and share such data with other devices.

The SDA also formed a Mobile Phone Task Force comprised of engineering and marketing representatives from Hewlett-Packard, Infineon, Microsoft, Motorola, NEC, Panasonic, Qualcomm, Renesas, Samsung, Sharp, Sychip, and Toshiba. The group is reaching out to the worldwide wireless communications industry by meeting with key operators/carriers and handset manufacturers, participating in trade shows like GSM Congress and CTIA, and engaging in a variety of industry education activities. This group will provide advocacy to ensure the needs of the mobile phone industry are met by the long-term road map for the format.

"The development of these new standards and the formation of SDA's Mobile Phone Task Force further demonstrates the robustness of the format and the growth potential for the SD Memory Card," said Ray Creech, President of the SD Card Association. "This continues to build on our strong market position in the mobile phone market and bring the many benefits of the SD Memory Card, including miniSD, to the wireless communications industry and the growing number of business and consumer mobile users."

"We are already demonstrating the interoperability and leadership of the SD Memory Card at the PMA 2004 show this week as HP and Panasonic are displaying the connectivity between their Mobile Handsets and Printers. This is a key demonstration of interoperability between the exploding mobile camera phone market, with miniSD(TM) cards, and printers using this memory card," said Charlie Shilling of Hewlett-Packard's Printing and Imaging group.

"This further demonstrates the superior technology and widespread industry support for the SD Memory Card as it continues to set the pace for the semi-conductor memory card market," said John P. Burnham, global director of marketing communications for the SD Card Association."

Posted to the site on 13th February 2004