HP ANNOUNCES ALLIANCE WITH GEMPLUS AND INFORMIX TO DELIVER PERSONAL
INFORMATION CARDS FOR CONSUMERS

U.S. GOVERNMENT REVIEWING INDUSTRY-BACKED HP INTERNATIONAL CRYPTOGRAPHY
FRAMEWORK

PALO ALTO, CALIF., (SEPT. 26, 1995) -- Hewlett-Packard Company, Gemplus and
Informix Software, Inc. today announced the formation of an alliance to
develop a secure infrastructure that will enable corporations to speed new
services to consumers via a credit-card-sized personal information card.

These cards will carry several thousand times the amount of data carried by
currently available smart cards. Additionally, the data on these cards
will be fully encrypted for secure international communication, so the
card will be able to be used anywhere in the world. HP believes that the
U.S. government will authorize the export to commercial enterprises of
products in Phase I(1) of HP's international cryptography framework
standard -- one of the underlying technologies in the infrastructure that
will enable the international use of personal information cards. The
framework is based on HP's open cryptographic structure.

Each member of the alliance will contribute key technologies:

 * HP -- server, encryption, middleware and networking technologies
 * Gemplus -- advanced smart-card technology
 * Informix -- database and middleware technologies

Personal information cards, along with the international cryptography
framework, will allow corporations to deliver services while still
ensuring the privacy of each consumer's personal information. New business
applications that could emerge once these technologies are available
include the following:

 * secure communications between employees of a multinational
   corporation;
 * secure transactions on the Internet;
 * secure international transactions between credit-card and service
   providers; and
 * secure personal information that also is managed by the owner.

PERSONAL INFORMATION CARD

HP, Gemplus and Informix are adding unique elements to the personal
information card that will make it easy for consumers to manage their own
personal information. The personal data stored on the card may then be
accessed by multiple service providers for such tasks as purchasing
airline tickets and storing frequent-flyer-miles transactions in a
consumer's personal database. Unlike single-transaction smart cards,
consumers may use their card with multiple service providers.

The personal information card will be more convenient than today's retail
cards since all transactions are captured in the card, thus showing
current balances in checking, frequent-user, savings, credit- card and
other types of accounts. All transactions will automatically be posted to
the correct place in the owner's personal accounting system. The
information in the personal information card will be fully accessible and
viewable by the card's owner, eliminating the need to call multiple firms
or agencies to obtain or manage this information. All of this is
accomplished with security that is controlled by the card owner.

INTERNATIONAL CRYPTOGRAPHY FRAMEWORK

Because current export restrictions limit the use of encryption technology
for secure international communication, there is no common, secure IT
infrastructure; this, in turn, severely limits international services and
commerce. The framework will be incorporated into the alliance solution to
address this concern. The U.S. government is currently reviewing HP's
international-cryptography-framework technology to determine
exportability. HP has requested export authorization to allow shipments by
mid-1996 of two of the framework's Phase I elements -- providing
non-user-accessible cryptography. U.S. government export approval will
still be required for the framework elements that will activate the
non-user-accessible technology. According to the U.S. government, HP's
international cryptography framework is a promising concept that could
work within export policy and provide needed commercial cryptography
capabilities.

Under government export authorization, HP plans to broaden the geographic
markets for Phase I products. HP's open cryptographic structure will allow
a more flexible range of cryptographic capabilities and new technologies
to be incorporated into customers' applications without making obsolete
their existing investment in security and cryptographic infrastructures.
Export licenses will be needed only for the new technologies -- not for
the framework's compliant products -- thus saving customers time and
money.

The framework meets the needs of businesses, the Internet and governments
for secure business transactions and messages. Businesses will be able to
choose the appropriate cryptography solutions to meet their changing needs
and still be in compliance with evolving government policies.

"HP is revolutionizing worldwide commerce as part of an alliance that will
leapfrog any announced product or service in the area of international
commerce," said Richard W. Sevcik,HP vice president and general manager of
the System Technology Group of the Computer Systems Organization. "HP's
open cryptographic structure is another example of HP's leadership
position in developing open-systems technologies for the users of computer
technology."

HP, Gemplus and Informix will demonstrate the personal-information- card
solution in Geneva at Telecom '95. The demonstration will show how a
single, interactive card can access multiple services -- today, such
access requires a separate card from each service. The single card is more
secure since it contains a tamperproof processor that fully encrypts all
transactions to and from the card. In addition, the card could be used to
store "electronic cash," thus eliminating the need to visit an automatic
teller machine to get hard currency. The same card also could be used as a
credit card, all at the consumer's discretion. All transactions, cash or
credit, will automatically be posted to the correct place in the owner's
personal accounting system. Many more uses are being planned for the
personal information card.

"By combining complementary resources and expertise, this alliance provides
the world of smart cards financial transactions with very highly secured
end-to-end solutions," said Marc Lassus, president and chief executive
officer, Gemplus SCA. "This concept also meets consumer requirements for a
simple card to access different information systems. Altogether we now
have the key to deliver new services to this huge potential market."

"Informix's experience in providing database technology in smart- card
technology internationally has taught us that customers need a
multipurpose card that is fast, cheap, flexible and easy to use," said
Jeff Hudson, vice president of business development for Informix Software.
"These personal information cards will allow service providers, such as
financial institutions, telecommunications companies and airlines, to
provide customers with individualized service -- all on one card.
Informix's high-performance, scalable database technology, Dynamic
Scalable Architecture, is the only database that can manage the data
requirements of this first-of-its- kind technology efficiently."

Gemplus is the world leader in the plastic card industry, with both
conventional and smart cards with a yearly production capacity of 850
million cards and an international presence in 19 countries. With
production facilities and service bureau operations in the USA and in
Europe, Gemplus has 1,200 jobs with a turnover of 1,084MF (million francs)
at the end of 1994.

Gemplus supplies more than 80 countries worldwide in applications such as
information highways, multimedia, banking, electronic purse, loyalty,
telecommunications (pay phone and GSM cards), pay TV, healthcare,
transportation, vending, physical and logical access control, etc.
Gemplus' key factor of success is its commitment to total quality, its
ability to keep turning out new products, solutions and applications for
every imaginable customer demand.

Informix Software is the leading supplier of high performance, parallel
processing database technology, for open systems. The company's database
servers are the number one choice of computer hardware manufacturers for
publishing Transaction Processing Council (TPC) benchmarks for UNIX-based
systems. Informix products also include application development tools for
creating client/server production application, decision support systems
and ad-hoc query interfaces, and connectivity software that allows
information to be shared transparently from PCs to mainframes within the
corporate computing environment. The company's corporate headquarters is
in Menlo Park, California. More information about Informix is available
via the World Wide Web: http://www.informix.com/.

HP is the world's leading supplier of open, client/server systems and is
the second-largest computer supplier in the United States, with computer
revenue of $19.6 billion in its 1994 fiscal year. HP has been delivering
PA-RISC(2)-based business computers since 1986 with high reliability, data
integrity, data availability and systems availability.

Hewlett-Packard Company is a leading global manufacturer of computing,
communications and measurement products and services recognized for
excellence in quality and support. HP has 99,900 employees and had revenue
of $25billion in its 1994 fiscal year.

(1) Phase I of the international cryptography framework will integrate
on-user accessible dormant encryption technology into host system for
distribution in Western Europe in addition to the United States and
Canada. The framework offers a flexible and scaleable range of
cryptographic features that can be fully integrated into system solutions
and activated only when business needs are identified.

(2) PA-RISC stand for Precision Architecture, reduced-instruction- set
computing.
 
 =========================================================
 From the 'New Product News' Electronic News Service on...
 AOL (Keyword = New Products) and Delphi (GO COMP PROD)
 =========================================================
 This information was processed from data provided by the
 company/author mentioned. For additional details, please
 contact them directly at the address/phone# indicated.
 Trademarks are the property of their respective owners.
 =========================================================
 All submissions for this service should be addressed to:
 BAKER ENTERPRISES,  20 Ferro Dr,  Sewell, NJ  08080  USA
 Email: rbakerpc@delphi.com  -or- RBakerPC (on AOL/Delphi)
 =========================================================
