Timeline of Callcard related "Smart Card" Companies

From the Smart Card advent in the early 70's, to its boom in the mid 90's, Callcards have had an interesting journey. Below we've created a timeline explaining the origins and present state of the companies that played a part in the Callcards he know and love today.

1974 - Innovatron is founded by Roland Moreno, who is credited for patenting the first IC card or "Smart Card" as known to most
1977 - Bull CP8, Schlumberger and Thomson-CSF begin developing the "Smart Card" concept
1979 - Schlumberger in France begin chip card activities
1980 - Schlumberger develop telephone chip cards for France Telecom and Telia (Sweden)
1988 - 6 engineers leave Thomson-CSF and form Gemplus in France, initially working on prepaid phonecards
1994 - Innovatron's Smart Card Patent expires after 20 years of 'Golf Flag' Logo on Smart Cards worldwide
1995 - McCorquodale Card Technology (Bowater Printing Ltd) sells its chip card business to De La Rue Card Systems. De La Rue team begin a joint venture with Philips, forming Delphic

1996 - Schlumberger aquire Soliac
1996 - Landis & Gyr aquire ODS (R. Oldenbourg Datensysteme GmbH) to become ODS Landis & Gyr GmbH & Co. KG
1997 - De La Rue buy out Philips Electronics in their Delphic shared venture
2000 - Gemplus aquire ODS Landis & Gyr
2001 - Schlumberger acquire Bull's CP8 division & it's related patents
2001 - Schlumberger is renamed SchlumbergerSema after acquiring IT company Sema Group
2003 - SchlumbergerSema sells off it's IT Devision and creates Axalto to spin off its card & POS Business into one company
2005 - Sagem aquires Ogra to form Sagem Orga (now known as Safran Morpho)
2006 - Axalto (formally Schlumberger) and Gemplus (world no.1 & 2) merge to become Gemalto, selling 2 in every 3 smart cards in the world (at the time)

Pictured is  Axalto’s CEO, Olivier Piou and President & CEO of Gemplus, Alex Mandl