SmartCard APIs?

Not knowing the vendor yet, how is it Microsoft doesn't have any APIs or interfaces for SmartCards? Figure this would be the first thing that when they were coming out MSFT would've made available....

I've found different articles on writing classes to use myself but how's this not baked in yet?

Is there a smartcard standard yet?  Last time I worked on them (1999) each vendor seemd to store the data in a proprietary format.  While I would like to think that they would have worked out a standard by now, my pessimistic streak wonders if they ever agreed to anything.

Before we can have a single API, surely we need a single standard for data storage?

Herbie

For now i think the standard you can use especially on PC is   PC/SC http://www.pcscworkgroup.com/ and then APDU commands.

To make development easier you can get some good wrappers on codeplex ...

TPM is probably going to make Smart Card technology obsolete.

Except the TPM has nothing to do with Smartcards. They operate in different areas and have different strengths and weaknesses. It is like comparing an aircraft to a bus, and saying the new Boeing Dreamliner will obsolete long distance bus travel.