The NFC Forum, a non-profit
industry association that advances the use of Near Field Communication (NFC)
technology, announced that it has signed agreements to work collaboratively
with organizations representing three different industries: the Asia Pacific
Smart Card Association (APSCA), the Association for Retail Technology Standards
(ARTS), a division of the National Retail Federation (NRF), and the Open Mobile
Alliance.
It is gratifying to formalize partnerships with
organizations representing these important global sectors,” said Koichi Tagawa,
chairman of NFC Forum.
The interest in collaboration from this range of
industries retailing, smart cards, and mobile services – demonstrates how
widely the value of NFC technology is recognized, and it points to the
far-reaching benefits consumers can expect from broad adoption of NFC. We look
forward to working together with our new partners and to the synergies our
joint efforts will deliver,” Tagava added.
Each agreement executed by the NFC Forum
is tailored to the interests of the participating organizations and their
members:
APSCA is a non-profit, independent association that provides information, consultancy,
guidance, and networking to organizations in the smart card industry in the
Asia Pacific region.
The NFC Forum’s Memorandum of Understanding with APSCA
will allow the two entities to capitalize on mutual interests by sharing
information and coordinating non-technical activities such as training courses,
case studies, white papers, research, webcasts, and events.
ARTS is a retailer-driven international membership
organization dedicated to developing best practices, technology standards and
educational programs through collaboration and partnerships exclusively for
retail.
Collaboration under the NFC Forum-ARTS Memorandum of
Understanding will focus on information exchange and education, including
publishing joint papers that would highlight specific case examples and
implementation issues for retailing, sharing statistics and research, and
educating and communicating with retailers through the well-respected NRF
communication channels.
The Open Mobile Alliance is the leading industry forum
for developing market driven, interoperable standards for mobile service
enablers. The Co-Operation Agreement with the NFC Forum asserts the two groups’
common objectives to establish and promote global standards in the wireless
telecommunications and Internet domain.
It further institutes a context for joint work on
NFC-enabled devices and related applications, including, but not limited to,
diagnosing problems and monitoring device performance over the air.
Team
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