Intel pursues a comprehensive NFC Strategy

• Intel is entering the market with a comprehensive NFC strategy

• NFC for smartphones and ultrabooks

• Entry point is mobile payment transactions via NFC

• Partnerships with smartphone manufacturers, wireless carriers and credit card organizations

• The first smartphones with „Intel inside“ from various manufacturers will be introduced in the second quarter of 2012

• Further areas are being tapped for use with NFC

The further establishment and market penetration of NFC-based mobile payment solutions are dependent on the collaboration between multiple players. In particular, smartphone manufacturers, wireless carriers, and credit card organizations must work together to create a functioning ecosystem and present solutions for customers.

While individual alliances and promises currently exist in this market, conflict continues to break out between players in the background. One of the fault lines runs between wireless carriers and smartphone manufacturers and is related to the question of who is responsible for providing the “secure element”. This “secure element” is a combination of hardware, software, interfaces, and protocols that ensures the safety of the flow of personal and confidential data. In the context of mobile payment solutions, the “secure element” must be realizable both from the smartphone side as well as the SIM card side, depending on where a user’s personal information is stored. It comes as no surprise that smartphone manufacturers are interested in integrating the “secure element” directly into their products, while wireless carriers are pushing for a SIM card solution.

Intel is now trying to push itself between the two sides by delivering this “secure element” as part of its chips. Intel’s solution is characterized by the fact that the “secure element” in its chips can be shut down by wireless carriers in order to employ a SIM card solution, should the carrier wish to do so. This could allow Intel to contribute to decreasing the tension between smartphone manufacturers and wireless carriers, and thereby lead to the faster spread of NFC smartphones, while also allowing the company to participate in the value-added chain within the field of NFC.

At the moment, however, the smartphone market is dominated by processors provided by other manufacturers and based on ARM architectures. In order to break up this dominance, Intel is pushing into the market with an atom processor with integrated NFC technology. As a means of accelerating smartphone development, Intel has already made deals with ZTE, Motorola Mobility and Lenova to offer smartphones with Intel processors before the end of this year. The first manufacturer to deliver a smartphone with “Intel inside” is “Lava International” in India. Additionally, Intel was able to win Orange, a large wireless carrier in France and Great Britain, as well as VISA and MasterCard on the side of the credit card organizations, to its cause.

Intel is integrating its smartphone solutions in a more comprehensive strategy by betting on NFC as an up-and-coming technology. Aside from smartphones, Intel is also equipping “ultrabooks” – particularly flat notebooks for which Intel recently introduced the term as a brand – with NFC capability. This will allow customers to use their smartphones to authorize online purchases made via a notebook. Simultaneously, Intel is pursuing further applications for NFC technology. For example, ticket purchases, links to personal identification documents, security in companies as well as the downloading of personal health data, are all to be made possible in conjunction with NFC technology.

Source: intel

What is notable about this development is the fact that with Intel, another big player is now betting on NFC as the technology of the future, and that another actor who is new to the market is attempting to participate in the value-added chain of payment transactions. It is also interesting that a big player is decidedly betting on the potential inherent in NFC technology for application beyond mobile payment transactions, because the mobile payment function thereby becomes simply a case of applying personal authentication and authorization processes via smartphone.

Intel

http://nfctimes.com/news/intel-nfc-not-passing-fancy-chip-giant-prepares-push-nfc-phones-and-other-devices

http://derstandard.at/1334531056907/Medfield-Erstes-Android-Smartphone-mit-Intel-Chip-landet

Secure Element

http://www.mobeyforum.org/content/download/….pdf