I met with Deepak Jain from Axalto, mainly to find out why they thought putting a server onto a SIM card was a good idea. Although it seems to be theoretically possible to host a blog on a SIM card (for example), the main target seems to be carriers who can use the card to put their own branding onto a handset even it if was bought from a third party…particularly good for MVNOs. It’s also useful for upgrading handsets — not so much for moving content (although the 128 Mb SIMs could move a bit) but for moving the DRM for the content. The rights of use are tied to the SIM rather than the handset so the user can transfer the content between the phones with a different technology (such as bluetooth) and use it when the SIM gets moved. Again, better for operators because the use of content is tied to the mobile service rather than to the handset.
The SIMs Axalto are promoting have 128 Mb of memory, the technology is available for Gb-sized memory but that will be having consumers paying for them rather than operators.
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