Membership Benefits

General Benefits

  • Participate with your peers in Member Forums, to ensure that the particular concerns of your industry sector are addressed by the PC/SC Specifications. Notices about Member Forums are provided in the Member Activities pages.
  • Add your comments or concerns throughout the year to the Online Forum, in the Member Activities pages.
  • Provide input and feedback to technical work-in-process, which is available from the Specifications Update table in the Member Activities pages.
  • Keep current with the latest PC/SC activities: you will be informed about all new Specifications releases and pre-releases, and receive notice of Member Forums.
  • Your company name and PC/SC Compatible Products listing at the website, and link to your company website help lead potential customers to your product offerings.
  • You are encouraged to display the PC/SC membership logo on your website and at trade shows, additionally ensuring your customers that your company is participating in working toward a common standard. Logo is available in the Member Activities pages.
  • As a member, you have access to the PC/SC Workgroup email List-Serve, which allows you to communicate directly with all of the members. List-serve information is available to members in the Member Activities pages.

Additional Benefits

How your company will benefit from working toward and promoting common PC/SC standards:

  • SMART CARD READER MANUFACTURERS: Any PC/SC compliant smart card application will work with a PC/SC compliant reader.
  • SMART CARD MANUFACTURERS: PC/SC standards simplify development and maintenance of interface libraries.
  • APPLICATION DEVELOPERS: PC/SC smart card APIs and device management infrastructure are used to rapidly develop and maintain applications – which will work with any compliant smart card reader, via attachment to PCs.
  • OTHER INDUSTRY PARTICIPANTS: The entire industry ultimately benefits from PC/SC Workgroup standardization, due to investment protection and lower costs. End users will have a large number of smart card-enabled applications that will use the same interface device, and the cost of the devices will be market-driven, based upon a standardization / volume effect.