specification development body, along the lines served by the European Telecommunications Standards Institute (ETSI) in the telecommunications world. The Java Card Forum worked closely with Sun (and actually still does) to evolve the specification for Java Card, the smart card specific version of Java. In what we might refer to in later chapters as a symbiotic relationship, the Java Card Forum is central to developing specifications for smart card aware facilities within the Java world. Forming the other half of the symbiotic relationship, Sun takes these specifications and blends them with the Java for the rest of the computer world and disseminates formal specifications and conformance tests. The success of the approach is signaled by Java Card based smart cards now comprising a majority of the SIMs of cellular phones and expanding into other arenas of smart card activity in the Internet world.

While this story presents as a rather smoothly perceived and followed plan, there were indeed a number of internecine struggles along the way. Natural selection in the market world is like that. Indeed, there are competitive species seeking their toe-hold in this business domain as we write. Schlumberger begat Axalto, which later merged with Gemplus to form Gemalto, henceforth the largest current smart card company. However, there are other competitors on the veldt; from Gemalto’s .NET card and Multos in the technical domain to competitive threats from completely different industry segments in the business domain.

While the battle was raging in the technical arena in establishing the new era of open systems in smart cards, the business action was equally active. Several markets developed among the early adopters of Java Card technology, bringing smart cards solidly on the playing field of computer evolution. Since 2004, they have become the most prevalent form of computer in the world. If personal computers were the cockroaches of evolutionary progression, smart cards seek to be the Jeholodens. This early emergent form of mammal, which was an insectivore by the way, perhaps counts among its descendent lineage the human species. A recurring theme for the remainder of this book will be considering what directions this evolutionary path might take. As we have seen, and will continue to see, it is very much a context sensitive process.

For example, when Java Card was invented, Mobile Communications marketing teams within card manufacturers operations thought that the market was most interested in developing applications in an easy way on smart cards. Remember, before Java Card, all smart cards were programmed in different ways; mostly in assembly language, one of the hardest ways of programming a computer. Java could directly address this problem. So, marketing teams went to mobile phone operators touting this new capability. Interestingly enough, what seduced operators was not that feature, but the capability to download applications to the card over the air. The lesson here is that it is hard to predict which features of a new product will stick, when developing new technology. The ultimate irony of the Java Card story is that the application programming business really didn’t actually pick up. Rather, mobile companies just asked the card manufacturers to do the programming for them. But certainly, the story doesn’t stop here. As we will consider in some detail in the following chapters, the development of new species happens around the edges of the main body of the existent species.

An emerging market for smart cards is in Information Technology. By the mid-1990’s, there was a nascent market for smart cards to authenticate users on secure networks; for example, military networks or corporate networks in businesses where data are most highly valued. As with telecommunications and banking, Java Card introduced the capability to easily add functionality to smart cards after issuance. For example, on a ship, the card could be used to access the computer network as well as to pay for goods at the ship’s gift shop. By 2003, led by organizations like the Department of Defense of the United States and corporations like Shell Oil,

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