D-Link is initially planning to target small-office-home-office (SoHo) usersfor these products but, according to a senior official of the company,Anand, the target audience will change with the introduction of differentranges.

Today, personal computers have a limited number of serial ports and onecannot connect too many devices to them due to shortage of resources.Moreover, one cannot remove or attach any new device while the PC is in use.USB is an innovative technology that has been adopted by many leadingcomputer manufacturers to overcome this problem. "A USB helps you to useyour resources most effectively," said D-Link's Anand.

A cluster of five USBs can be attached to the main computer, the host. Thiscluster can connect almost 127 devices such as keyboard, mouse, printer,scanner, camera, speaker, network adapter and others.

PCs using operating systems like Windows '95 and '98, Apple Macintosh andOSR2 can support the USB ports. Other benefits include quicker installationof new peripherals, faster data speed, greater expandability on the numberof devices, easily swappable, no separate power supplies for all devices andlower peripheral costs - USB uses a single cable and two connector types.

D-Link is planning to integrate USB into its networking products. Commentingon the limitation of a USB hub, Anand said the distance limitation of 5 mtsis the main constraint compared to an ethernet hub, which can supportdevices at a distance of up to 100 mts. Worldwide, the market for USB is notbig. "We are trying to standardise the products here," Anand said. Moreover,users can directly connect PCs using their USB ports although these havelimited functionality. D-Link is one of the few companies to introduce theproduct in Asia but it has sold only 6 lakh in the three years sinceintroduction. Anand said that awareness may have something to do with it.