NFC: facing Google Wallet, 7 manufacturers support Isis

While Google has just launched their mobile no contact payment system with Google Wallet, American carriers are calling on their handset manufacturing partners to favour the alternative Isis system. The war on mobile payments has been declared.

By bypassing American mobile carriers in announcing their own mobile no contact payment system Google Wallet, the search giant is looking to take a strong position in this relatively new sector.

By announcing in May that their system would be available in September, Google set out to conquer the US market before expanding globally. In this segment, besides direct competitors like PayPal (who has just launched their own mobile payment service); there is a group of mobile carriers (AT&T, Verizon and T-Mobile, while Sprint has signed up with Google) and a competing system: , which is also built on the NFC technology (Near Field Communication).

Having decided that they wouldn’t miss out on an interesting revenue stream at a time e-commerce is continually growing, this group decided to throw their weight around in announcing that seven handset manufacturers and mobile players have accepted to integrate the Isis NFC technology in future handsets.


Support of the mobile industry
The makers are HTC, LG Electronics, Motorola Mobility, Research in Motion, Samsung Mobile, Sony Ericsson and DeviceFidelity, with this last one being the solutions provider who makes non NFC compatible handsets compatible with this short range wireless technology (through the use of specially designed shells which integrate an NFC module).

While the Google Wallet system is only available on the Nexus S handset at Sprint (even though more devices should soon be available), the group of carriers pushing Isis will be able to offer a wider range of mobile devices that work with their technology and mobile networks.

This will likely lead to commercial partnerships being developed to support their system, with the aim being to cast a wide net of available suppliers. At this time, only Google Wallet is operational and available in the United States.