We’ve been examining the NFC tea leaves for years, but until the base of handsets gets into the tens of millions NFC is only a technological curiosity and not a tool. ISIS, the mobile commerce JV of Verizon Wireless, AT&T, and T-Mobile, has done what no one else has managed to do yet – get the major handset manufacturers (excluding Apple of course) to line up and say that they are going to NFC-enable their product lines.
In this release, ISIS has HTC, LG, Motorola Mobility, RIM, Samsung, and Sony Ericsson pledging to real NFC shipments. ISIS also announced Device Fidelity, Visa’s chosen partner, as a provider of add-in NFC capability. Behind schedule by nine to 12 months, with this level of support, the year of NFC really will be 2012.