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A strategic collaboration between erstwhile competitors NXP Semiconductors and HID Global will now enable the use of wearable devices to open electronic locks at commercial buildings, hotels and offices while opening up new opportunities for both companies in the access control market.
NXP’s MIFARE solutions have had a significant presence in the access control credentials market, but the launch of MIFARE DESFire EV1 and EV2 meant that the company was going to really challenge HID, a major player in the access control market with its iClass readers and credentials a staple product, especially in North America.
However, the collaboration agreement between NXP and HID in a rapidly evolving credentials market illustrates the comparative importance of mining new opportunities, over competitive concerns.
Though the credentials market, especially for payments, transportation ticketing and e-government, is rapidly converging on mobile device platforms, the access control industry hasn’t, until now, jumped onto the mobile bandwagon. By embedding the HID Global Seos credential technology in NXP’s SmartMX NFC chip, both companies have taken a big leap into the mobile space. The SmartMX chip has already been used in the German electronic identification card, and is expected to play an important role in getting more smart devices mobile-ready.
With both NXP and HID being major suppliers to governments around the world, the collaboration between the two companies will address the needs of the e-government market. HID’s acquisition of IAI in 2015 highlights the company’s commitment to making e-government an even stronger part of their portfolio, with support from NXP.
Wearable devices potentially represent one of the biggest markets in the access control space in the next five years. The collaboration agreement combined with the launch of HID’s mobility solutions and NXP’s strong SmartMX chip will put pressure on LEGIC Connect and other competing solutions, as they now face an aligned grouping of two forward-looking companies in this industry.
According to Alexander Derricott of IHS Technology, greater collaboration between HID and NXP in mobile credentialing may lead to the two companies becoming the de-facto standards authority. While HID and NXP continue to supply two competitive smart card standards, this issue is dwarfed by the rewards that could be reaped by an open mobile access control solution.