Vikas Mehta 
04BCA23 [TYBCA]

'Smart drives' can make any computer your own Portable software may be wave of the future for consumers, firms Lots of people own two or three computers. But thanks to a powerful new technology anybody can make any computer their own, just by plugging in a common digital device.

A new product called MojoPac lets iPod users take control of any desktop computer running Microsoft Corp.'s Windows XP operating system.

And major flash memory makers like SanDisk Corp. and Lexar Media Inc. have begun making "smart" thumb drives that let the user carry favorite software programs on the keyring-size devices. When plugged into any Windows-based computer, the smart drive lets the user work on a stranger's computer exactly as if it were his own, with all the same software and settings.

"By the end of 2008, people will install software on their smart drive, and not on their hard drive," said Kate Purnal, chief executive of U3 LLC in Redwood City, Calif., which markets one of the new smart drives.

If the new technology catches on, companies would have greater flexibility in assigning computers to employees.

Each machine could contain only an operating system, such as Windows software. All other programs would be loaded onto a smart drive, which the worker would keep at all times and use on any computer in the office.

The smart drive can be equipped with data encryption and password protection, to protect sensitive data in case it is lost.

At home, every family member could build a personalized computing environment on his or her own smart drive, rather than the computer's hard drive. A brother could no longer infect his sister's files with viruses; the family's avid gamer wouldn't accidentally delete the income tax records.

Because smart drives are relatively cheap -- a two-gigabyte drive from SanDisk costs around $60 -- family members could buy several, and use each for a specialized computing task, from gaming to financial planning.

And forget about snooping on each other. The smart drive technology stores all data in the portable device. When the user unplugs the device, it leaves behind no traces.

Two Israeli companies, Msystems Ltd. and Ceedo Technologies Ltd., independently developed smart drive technology. SanDisk teamed up with Msystems to create a technical standard called U3, while Lexar and Ceedo launched an alternate standard, called PowerToGo.

U3 can't run Windows applications without some modification. The company has worked with software developers to produce dozens of programs that will run on U3 smart drives, including the popular Firefox Internet browser and the free OpenOffice office software suite. But many popular Windows programs still aren't available for U3, including the industry standard Microsoft Office.

Peter Carcione, senior product marketing manager at Lexar, said his company's PowerToGo doesn't need specially tailored software. "We are the only one to run real Windows applications unmodified," he said.

For $30, users can buy an add-on program called InstallAnything, which emulates the features of a traditional hard drive loaded with Windows. Carcione said this lets Lexar's smart drives support any standard Windows program.

Meanwhile, both Lexar and SanDisk are facing a new competitor. RingCube Technologies Inc.'s new MojoPac system works on thumb drives, or on any other storage device that can plug into a computer's Universal Serial Bus (USB) port. That means it can take advantage of hard drive-based storage devices like the larger Apple iPods, which now come with up to 80 gigabytes of storage.

Joseph Unsworth, principal analyst at Gartner Inc., said that while smart-drive technology is now mainly being targeted at consumers, it could chiefly benefit businesses, by providing a secure technology for connecting portable drives to corporate data networks. He said that companies could equip workers with U3 drives with unique digital fingerprints, which could then be given trusted access to sensitive data.

But Nam Hyung Kim, principal analyst for iSuppli Corp. in El Segundo, Calif., warned that neither consumers nor corporate users understand or trust the smart-drive concept. "It will be very challenging to educate people," Kim said.