Ericsson has announced the release of a development kit for its Trusted Service Manager (TSM) service. With the development kit, selected partners can remotely deploy, update and delete applications, while maintaining the same security level as in a real-life implementation through a standards-based TSM platform. This means that partners can test their applications, with actual users, even in a commercial environment. With the launch of the kit, Ericsson hopes to boost the advancement of compelling NFC applications, within access control, payment, loyalty or ticketing.
Richard Anell, Head of IPX, Ericsson, says; "We are making this development kit available to selected partners because service providers need to take their applications from the lab and PowerPoint stage to the next level. The development kit provides a true-to-life setting, not a simulation and is exactly how it would work in a commercial environment." Mr. Anell continues: "Analysts agree that in the coming years we will see exponential growth of NFC services as more and more NFC handsets become available, and operators invest in the required infrastructure. But to gain true momentum the applications must be tested, refined and optimized with consumers prior to commercial roll-out."
The development kit contains 2 Micro SD cards and Range Extenders from Device Fidelity as well as one NFC USB Reader, plus a test account on Ericsson IPX's TSM platform. Included are software components and documentation and an example service is provided, so service providers can test the full deployment path before using their own code.
The Micro SD cards contain a Secure Element, a trusted execution environment where the partner's application runs in NFC card emulation mode. Ericsson's Android proxy client enables communication with the TSM platform for remote life cycle management of the secure applications through standardized web-service APIs.