What are some of the barriers security managers might face when considering smart card adoption?
The single biggest barrier to wider smart card adoption has been the lack of interoperability among cards and readers and the costs associated with this challenge. The coming year will be one of change, as the barriers toward interoperability come down following the arrival of the multi-technology reader. These new readers, introduced late last year, are open standard, multi-protocol readers that can read both proximity and smart cards. This new breed of readers can process multiple smart card protocols and multiple proximity card protocols simultaneously. This multi-frequency, multi-protocol and multi-modulation approach allows customers – until now locked into proprietary reader/card technology and stalled by infrastructure upgrade costs – to use their current proximity cards as they transition to a smart card system. This allows them greater overall flexibility when choosing new, more advanced smart cards.
