Sophia-Antipolis, March 12, 2007–ASK, leader in Calypso dual interface and contactless smart cards for the transportation sector, announces that the worldwide leader in smart cards signed a license agreement to benefit from ASK TanGO Operating System.

“This new strategy strengthens transport operators decision to implement Calypso based fare collection systems. They are now offered multi-source smart card manufacturers. TanGO can clone such legacy cards as GTML, GTML2 and CD97 to carry on existing systems as well as provide new features and interoperability,” says Patrick Sure, Transport and banking Business Line Manager.

TanGO has been developed to provide a customized and optimized Operating System of a new generation of cards based on various chip providers. It has been successfully implemented in Torino during the XXth Winter Olympic Games when transport operator GTT and SITAF decided to go contactless with ASK cards and contactless paper tickets.

For mass transit application, the advanced security mechanism authorizes several transport authorities to share the same medium, each authority having its own set of secret keys and thus accessing the common contract. This feature and a customized file structure allows a smooth upgrade to true regional interoperability and multi-application.

“The versatility of ASK’s TanGO platform allows us to combine GTT transport services with our own,” says Mr. Ugo Jalasse, managing director, SITAF.

About ASK

Founded in 1997, ASK is today a worldwide leading supplier of contactless cards, tickets, RFID tags, e-passport inlays and readers addressing the mass transit, access control, banking, e-identity and supply chain markets. More than 70 million contactless products are already in service. ASK’s contactless solutions comply with ISO standards including ICAO and EPC’s. ASK’s manufacturing center is located at the company’s headquarter in Sophia-Antipolis, France with regional offices in Paris, Singapore and Culver City, USA.

For more information: http://www.ask-rfid.com.

Contact

Claire Boyer
Tel: +33 4 97 21 48 56
Fax: +33 6 72 14 01 46
Email: claire.boyer@ask.fr