David: My wife and I both ride Honda bikes. But the Yamahas are definitely sweet rides. And you're right, U3 is very interesting, so let's get back to that. Kingston is now offering a number of U3 products. Please help us understand what U3 is and why it may be important.

Heather: Kingston's U3 DataTraveler smart drive conveniently runs portable U3 applications using the free pre-loaded U3 software. It is also compatible with software you can download from http://www.U3.com. Users can choose from a growing list of U3-compatible software categories including communication, productivity, file synchronization, games, photo, security, and many more.

David: Do you (Kingston) now find yourself doing U3 software support?

Heather: Kingston supports the launchpad and the basics of the software that we put on our drive. Any other software support would go direct to the software vendor. We do get calls about software, but not as much as one would think. U3 has a great site with software downloads and it is very clear about where customers should go on their site for the desired product support.

Kingston fully supports its drive and when we come to market with a product, we want to be able to fully support the entire product. We do extensive testing on our products before they go to market, so when a customer purchases a Kingston product they know that we have dedicated the time and effort necessary to ensure it works properly. If we don't feel a software program has the correct support or functionality we simply won't put it on our drive. We want to make certain that the companies that we represent on our drive have the same work ethic as we do at Kingston.

David: Is the U3 technology product opportunity worth the extra support load?

Heather: The support is in line with our support requirements for non-U3 USB devices, and has not increased our support needs, requirements, or costs. Therefore, I would say it is worth our time.

David: Where's the technology that makes up U3? What's the propellor-head stuff that makes it work?

Heather: There are two parts to making U3 work. First, a drive with special controllers to understand certain commands and be able to support two partitions (a read-only for U3 Launch-Pad software, and Removable partition for applications and data to be able to install/write to).

Second is the software. Software has to be coded specifically to run from a removable partition (versus a physical, permanent drive) and not rely on Windows Registry related commands. Simply put, the software needs to be tweaked to communicate with or through the U3 LaunchPad instead of normally going directly through the Windows OS.

David: What sort of hardware changes, over and above what's in the usual thumb drives, make the U3 capability possible?

Heather: Mainly a specially configured controller -- one allowing for two partitions on one physical drive and also understanding a couple of proprietary commands pertinent to U3. All other hardware is the same as a non-U3 drive.