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To: Bruno Cipolla who wrote (26174)	6/22/2004 8:00:52 PM
From: Steve 667	Read Replies (3) \| Respond to of 60323

Thumb drives are hitching a ride to a speedy ramp-up eetuk.com By Rick Merritt EE Times 21 June 2004 (9:01 p.m. GMT) SAN JOSE, Calif. — Thumb drives — so called for their diminutive size — are quickly becoming a mass-market phenomenon. But despite their capacious storage, they lack a couple of key attributes: They have no speed standards and you can't boot a Windows computer from them. That will change in the next year or so thanks to work from Microsoft, BIOS vendors and USB and flash drive makers, potentially kicking into overdrive a market already in high gear. The USB Implementers Forum is in the late stages of drafting a boot spec for these USB flash drives, as they are properly known. Microsoft Corp. is working on a version of its Windows Pre-installation Environment for the drives, describing it as a Windows XP-class "utility environment," not a general-purpose operating system. Some vendors already have versions of the drives that will boot into DOS. BIOS makers are doing their bit to enable the boot spec, and USB flash drive makers are gearing up to deliver the devices as early as 2005. The concept: Plug your key chain fob into any rented computer or kiosk and work as if you are on your own system. The new capability could make USB flash drives a standard screwdriver for tomorrow's IT shops and mobile work force. Along the way it could open up vertical markets and attract third-party software companies to develop novel applications for the tiny drives, which now hold anywhere from 8 Mbytes to 2 Gbytes of storage and sell for between $15 and $500. "I think this will be very significant," said Akil Houston, a client storage evangelist for Microsoft working to enable the products. "These devices were touted as floppy replacements, but before you can crown them floppy replacements, you have to be able to boot from them." Analysts project anywhere from 67 million to 120 million USB flash drives will be sold next year, up from about 23 million in 2003. 'Your mobile OS' "I would not think of it so much as a keychain PC as your mobile OS," said Steffen Hellmold, general manager of OEM products at Lexar Media (Fremont, Calif.), one of some 16 companies now making USB flash drives. The boot specification will be an addition to a family of USB flash drive products that today include models with built-in MP3 players, voice recorders and fingerprint recognizers. "These drives could potentially displace certain markets such as basic handhelds, as they have already started to replace floppy drives and cannibalized the CD-R market," said a recent report from market research house iSuppli Corp.(El Segundo, Calif.). ----- Can anyone name all 16 companies? Steve

To: Bruno Cipolla who wrote (26174)	6/23/2004 7:15:45 AM
From: Road Walker	Respond to of 60323

Bruno, re: Samsung's Linux NAND flash memory software allows the NAND flash memory to store code as well as data, and as a result, Samsung predicted, it should be possible to drop NOR flash memory from mobile telephone handsets. Probably not a huge positive for NAND manufacturers but could be a big problem for the NOR guys (INTC, AMD). I wonder what the downside's are to the Linux/NAND code storage solution? Also could be good for the consumer with smaller, less expensive devices. John