With the development of smart cards technology mirroring that of the PC development, Linux is also beginning to appear as a contender on the smart card frontier as well. According to Wang Jiping, chief technology officer of China MobileSoft Ltd., Linux is gaining even greater traction and penetration for the embedded systems market than the PC market.
Wang, who was speaking at the recent Gemplus Developer Conference, believes that Linux will soon be appearing in every type of information device, especially small mobile devices. And as the usage of smart cards proliferates, consumers will be using portable computers with smart cards to access the Internet and to engage in e-commerce.
Eventually, the smart card will be important as a means for security and as a repository for personal information. A real life example of applications that have crossed over to smart card technology with Linux is the Simputer, which is a Linux-enabled handheld device.
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