What is the smart computing platform?
Not tying applications to a specific desktop or laptop computer, but installing them and launching them from a U3 drive so they can run anywhere — that’s what smart computing is all about. It’s a hardware and software platform — there are hardware specifications and user-interface software we called the Launchpad. When you plug [the smart drive] into a computer and launch an app, it first has to make sure it is running the right operating system. When you’re done, it needs to shut down — even if shutting down means a user pulling out a USB drive — not crash, not cause data loss. Then, when it’s done, it needs to remove traces of applications run from the machine. That is what’s happening under the covers. How do you expect customers to react to so-called smart drives? We’ve seen unbelievable interest. People get it immediately. They start wondering why the heck they didn’t install software any other way after using it. Think about it — you are about to install applications, where
