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Definition: p-card


(1) (Personal-CARD) A self-issued information card in CardSpace or other identity metasystem. See identity metasystem.

(2) (Procurement-CARD or Purchasing-CARD) A corporate-level Visa or MasterCard distributed to employees with restrictions imposed by the company paying the bill. Individuals or groups may have a monthly spending limit, and the types of purchases may be pre-established. For example, the p-card may be valid at restaurants and hotels but would not be accepted in a jewelry store (unless, of course, you are the CEO!).

(3) (Processor CARD) A PCI adapter from the former Coresma, Inc., Palo Alto, CA that provided real time processing for cable modems. Supporting Coresma's Elastream scheduling algorithm, one PCard resided in the host computer of the cable company for each head end and supported thousands of cable modem users. Coresma, originally founded in 1995 as Netgame Cable, went out of business in 2004, and its debt was acquired by Technoprises Ltd., an Israeli management technology firm.