SIMposium 2011

SIMalliance reflects on it s two day event in Rome London, 30th June 2010 - SIMalliance, the global association of SIM card manufacturers, announces that the fourth edition of its SIMposium 2011 conference gathered more than 250 participants in Rome from 33 countries over the two days. Participants represented the whole mobile services ecosystem, of which 27% were operator companies.

The one overarching theme in the halls and breakout rooms was a belief that the industry must continue to champion its relevancy in today s converged world. Here the cloud was key, and the SIM s pivotal role in locking and unlocking access. Major Deal Team founder Bob Pike and Co-Chairman of the Conference was certainly taken with the opportunities here and felt extending the alliance s, and the industry s, influence outside of the traditional Telco sphere would be critical.

With the likes of Apple and Google in the apps development market we need to think about the whole network, not simply the mobile one, he said. Pike believes the SIM, and smart cards in general, have massive roles to play in enabling and securing access to cloud services; a role he believes could be undertaken by thin client software from players in the IT world but not without significant cost and complexity .

The SIM and smart cards already provide proven levels of user authentication and offer a logical next step for mobile and over the top internet players alike - steps already being taken by the Smart Card Web Server technology.