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October 2005 • Volume 10 Number 10
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Member Profile: CardLogix
This month Smart Card Talk spoke with Ken Indorf, Vice President of Sales for CardLogix. Ken manages sales operations including interface with CardLogix suppliers, customers, sales representatives, and system integrators. He combines an extensive technical background with management expertise to focus customers, sales representatives, and system integrators on solutions for customers. He has held management positions including positions with Exar and Siliconix. Ken received a BS degree in Electronics Engineering from Hofstra University. 1. What are CardLogix's main business profile and offerings? CardLogix provides smart card technology platforms for the secure exchange of data and value. We manufacture and design smart cards, development environments, operating system and targeted application software. Our customers are integrators and end users who use smart cards in their computing systems where there is a clear business case for increased transaction efficiency and/or security. These applications include stored value, secure ID/access, loyalty and healthcare. We partner with our customers to create complete card systems geared to individual applications. Today, we have over 600 customers worldwide in a very wide range of applications, from events promotions to national healthcare systems. 2. What role does smart card technology play in supporting CardLogix business? Smart card technology is the main focus of our business, with a mix of cards and software offered by CardLogix to address the industry need for quick and easy development solutions. From our founding in 1994, we saw that customers needed a more personalized approach to help them integrate smart cards into their systems and demonstrate a return on investment. Having helped companies throughout the world to do this many times, our knowledge base allows us to help our partners save time and money on their designs and deployments. We offer a complete range of contact and contactless card types over a range of functionalities. 3. What trends do you see developing in the market that CardLogix hopes to capitalize on? Smart cards are really positioned at the intersection of two big trends. The first is the personalization of all technology that empowers people with more choice than ever before. The second is the exposure this empowerment creates in terms of private data and privacy in general. As the foremost choice in digital identity and credentialing, smart cards address these two trends powerfully and safely at a reasonable price point. Having worked in both so-called 'casual' applications and in top-tier security realms, CardLogix already has the expertise and developer base to deliver what the market needs. 4. What obstacles to growth do you see that must be overcome to capitalize on these opportunities? The market needs to be much better educated on the ROI of smart card implementation, including the "real" cost of cards and the enormous risks of ignoring security gaps that smart cards uniquely address. In the U.S., the industry must continue to address the apprehension that using smart cards violates personal privacy as a cost for security. When comparing hardware to software costs for systems that need real authentication, the total costs need to be evaluated and the cost of breached security needs to more carefully analyzed by the users. Although it is technically possible to emulate or duplicate some smart cards or tokens, the cost barrier is high. This is not the case with most software-based security schemes. The cost of replication is almost free. Therefore the risk basis is much higher. This is why a card present credit card transaction is given a lower rate by transaction processors. Enterprise markets tend to compare direct costs without looking at all other factors. 5. What do you see are the key factors driving smart card technology in the market? Well, identity management has to be the biggest. As mentioned before, successful smart card programs have to prove that secure ID management does not mean $20 cards and compromised privacy. In the U.S., market factors driving adoption certainly include Homeland Security and The Real ID Act. 6. How do you see your involvement in the Alliance helping CardLogix become successful? The Alliance is an important driver to the overall progress of every participant in the smart card industry. CardLogix has been in business for over a decade and we've seen the industry infrastructure evolve, but there's work left to do to propel U.S. use of smart cards up to worldwide levels. The Alliance's work parallels our own in de-mystifying the technology, nurturing a rich development environment, and making a strong business case for smart cards throughout many diverse applications. CardLogix recently joined the Alliance's Leadership Council to even more tightly weave our vision for the industry into the organization. 7. You mentioned the "real" cost of cards in evaluating smart card adoption. Is the per-card cost of smart card systems coming down as the market develops? Of course, as more cards are used in more common applications, the cost tends to drop. The "reality" of card cost is that early systems that have been deployed had loaded into card cost integration consulting. The ensuing cards tended to be over-engineered for their intended use. CardLogix uses a more targeted cost model and pinpoints the technology to the application. As more of the industry adopts this approach, customers will see better value for their smart card investments.
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