Gemplus Acquires SLP InfoWare; World's Leading Smart Card Provider Expands Software Offering with Buyout of Predictive CRM Software Company

Business Wire, Oct 24, 2000

Business Editors/High-Tech Writers

PARIS--(BUSINESS WIRE)--Oct. 24, 2000

Gemplus, the world's leading provider of smart card-based solutions, security and wireless applications, today announced the acquisition of SLP InfoWare Inc.

The buyout of SLP InfoWare provides Gemplus with software expertise in CRM and datamining to compliment the company's smart card offering and security and wireless applications.

SLP InfoWare, established in 1989 and based in Paris, is a worldwide leader in Predictive Customer Relationship Management (P-CRM) software solutions for the telecommunications and mobile e-commerce industries. SLP InfoWare's P-CRM applications are currently used to predict the behavior of more than 25 million mobile phone users around the world.

The major challenge facing telecommunications operators today is managing relationships with subscribers in a manner that builds customer loyalty. Predictive CRM systems can help reduce subscriber churn (customer non-renewal), a phenomenon that costs operators an average 25% of annual sales.

SLP InfoWare's P-CRM platform uses proprietary automated modeling technology called Automated Data Driven Discrimination (A3D(TM)) that enables marketing professionals to build accurate customer behavioral models in minutes, as well as to automate and optimize one-to-one marketing campaigns. This modeling engine generates Knowledge Objects(TM) containing customer knowledge that can be distributed throughout an organization's enterprise to different customer touch points, including call centers, e-commerce web sites, and mobile portals.

About Gemplus

Gemplus (www.gemplus.com) is the world's number one provider of smart card based solutions for security, wireless and e-business applications. Offering consulting services, design, software, hardware, personalization and full implementation, Gemplus works with its customers around the world to deliver comprehensive, integrated and tailor-made smart card based systems.

With sales of 5,029 billion francs in 1999 (767 billion Euros), Gemplus has over 6,300 employees in 17 production sites, 7 R&D centers, and 44 sales and marketing offices situated in 37 different countries all over the world. Established in 1988, Gemplus has successfully implemented portable and secure smart card solutions to simplify such varied applications as public and cell telephony, financial transactions, consumer loyalty, transport, education, health, games, identification, pay-TV, electronic commerce, Internet network security, access control and information technologies.

About SLP InfoWare

SLP InfoWare (www.slpinfoware.com) is one of the world leaders in Predictive Customer Relationship Management software (P-CRM) for the telecommunications, electronic commerce and mobile electronic commerce sectors. The SLP InfoWare P-CRM platform enables marketing professionals to build precise customer behavior models and to use the analysis to automate targeted marketing operations, to retain customers and guide one-to-one marketing actions which personalize offers and product groups. SLP InfoWare software is used to predict the behavior of over 20 million customers in the telecommunications, electronic commerce and banking sectors in the United States, Europe, Asia, Africa and Latin America. Based in Paris, SLP InfoWare also has offices in Boston, London, Frankfurt and Singapore.