Company history
GIS was established in 1985 by Christopher Curry (who was the founder of Acorn Computers in 1978) and Ron van der Hoorn.
GIS has experience in designing and manufacturing of high volume, low cost custom smartcard terminals.
GIS therefore has a long history in smartcards dating almost to the beginnings of the industry. Over that time the company has developed into one of the World's foremost experts on smartcards and associated products. The company is unique in that it spans both the hardware and the software aspects of the industry from the smartcard chip itself up to complete systems.
Today GIS offers a wide range of off-the-shelf smart card products including both online and off-line terminals accepting both contact- and contactless cards.
GIS - A long list of firsts
Innovative companies often suffer from being early on in marketplaces. They develop the market while others reap the benefits. Consider the following firsts for GIS:
Keyline
As payment for goods and services was seen to be the crucial factor in the success of this venture and GIS chose smartcard enablement from the outset and launched its first Network Computer in 1987 with a secure card reader module incorporated in a lap top device called the Keyline terminal.
Secure Operating System for Smart Cards (SOSCARD)
As we move to multi-function smart cards, there is a requirement to ensure that one application cannot affect another and that there are no back-door ways into to an application through its neighbour. GIS designed and specified a fire-walled operating system in 1992 that supported its RISC hardware and permitted on-board application processing. The MULTOS operating system has picked up on that theme and is promoting it as a unique selling point.
The Mondex Electronic Purse
As soon as it was announced, the Mondex electronic purse scheme was perceived by GIS as a world-beating and innovative electronic purse scheme. GIS immediately became a Mondex supporter and has designed and built a complete range of Mondex terminals. GIS equipment was present in just about every Mondex installation in the world. Sadly under the ownership of MasterCard, Mondex has gone into decline.
Public Transport
Electronic ticketing in the public transport market has seen a significant growth recently and GIS has applied their expertise to a new range of handheld ticket validators. Their custom designed light terminals allow single handed operation and allow prolonged use by ticket inspectors. Application have been developed for numerous proprietary schemes as well as open schemes such as ITSO .