Drexler Technology Corp. had found a new market for its optical memory LaserCards - Italian soccer fans.
The Mountain View, Calif., company has issued 22,500 LaserCards to season ticket holders for the season that begins in September at the Parma Calcio stadium in Parma, Italy.
The optical memory cards, which are the same size as regular credit cards but hold much more information, will be used in place of the traditional admission tickets.
This time around the cards will not offer any payment options, but "we have thoughts of eventually doing something like that," said Jerry Drexler, the company's president.
In the meantime, the system is designed as an attendance management system to keep track of soccer fans. Mr. Drexler said LaserCard's chief selling point is security.
Each card can be used only by its identified owner, and a computer tracks who attended each match and where in the stadium they are seated. LaserCard is resistant to counterfeiting, Mr. Drexler said.
"In soccer, there have been some very serious problems in stadiums," said Mr. Drexler, alluding hooliganism that has received international attention. "When people are anonymous, they tend to cause problems. This takes that factor away."
About 40 LaserCard readers will placed at the turnstiles to transmit digital data to and from the cards, the company said.
Drexler Technology manufacturers the cards, which can hold the equivalent of 2,000 pages of information, for consumer, commercial, and government markets. LaserCard Systems Corp., also of Mountain View, is its subsidiary.
