Thumb drive creator’s back... with the Flucard
By CHIA YAN MIN
patents around the world.
One such patented product
FOR the inventor of the ubiqui- that has the potential to revolutous thumb drive, the success of tionise the storage market is the
the storage device “which took Flucard, a Secure Digital (SD)
the world by storm” is tinged memory card that allows videos
and photos to be wirelessly transwith bittersweet memories.
Mr Henn Tan, chief executive mitted between devices such as
of technology solutions provider cameras and mobile phones.
With the benefit of hindsight
Trek 2000, said the company
made its “single biggest mistake” from the thumb-drive experience,
when it was too quick to share its Trek 2000 began selling the Flunew thumb-drive technology card in earnest last year after a
while the patent for it was still soft launch in 2010. The technolopending. “I was gullible, naive... gy was also launched under the
brand name FlashAir in
A few big companies
June last year by elecdropped by wanting to
tronics giant Toshiba.
collaborate and I was
Said Mr Tan: “We
more than happy to
have learnt some costly
share with them. Little
lessons... Intellectual
did I realise that many
property is interpreted
of them were hijackdifferently in different
ers,” said Mr Tan.
jurisdictions and by difThe patent for the
ferent companies.”
earliest thumb drive –
Instead of going it
also the company’s
alone, the company has
very first patent – was The Flucard allows
secured the support of
filed in February 2000 videos and photos
the global SD Card Asin 36 countries, with to be wirelessly
sociation, whose foundthe aim of replacing transmitted
ers are Panasonic,
the floppy disk.
between devices.
Toshiba and Sandisk.
In 2008, the major
“We want the wireless SD card
floppy-disk manufacturers publicly acknowledged that their tech- to be the industry standard,” said
Mr Tan. Sales of the product have
nology was obsolete.
“We won glory and prestige been “slowly growing”, he added.
The Flucard’s launch has not
but no money... The money was
won by the clones and the hijack- gone unchallenged – at least four
similar products have since
ers,” said Mr Tan.
Shaken but undeterred by the emerged. Mr Tan said discussions
experience, Trek 2000 has since about how to deal with the
gone on to expand its intellectual “clones” are still ongoing but he
property arsenal – the company declined to elaborate.
“Clones are a double-edged
has been granted more than 380
ALWAYS INNOVATING
If you have only one
product, your company
might not survive to
see tomorrow... There
are many more new
technologies up our
sleeves.
– Mr Henn Tan, CEO of technology
solutions provider Trek 2000
Trek 2000 CEO Henn Tan says the company’s “single biggest mistake” was sharing the new technology for its thumb drive
while the patent was still pending. For the Flucard, he’s adopting a different strategy. PHOTOS: TREK 2000, RAJ NADARAJAN
sword... They help to propagate
the technology but they also do
not have any pioneering costs in
research and development and so
are able to sell at a lower price.”
To distinguish the Flucard
from its competitors, Trek 2000
is developing mobile phone applications to accompany the product.
The company has dedicated a
larger research and development
(R&D) budget to develop the Flucard – R&D costs for the new
product were up to three times
more than that for the thumb
drive, said Mr Tan.
In total, R&D spending comes
up to about US$5 million (S$6.3
million) a year on average. The
company,
which
reported
US$80.4 million in revenue last
year has more than 40 staff members working in R&D.
“I strongly believe that the
days of the ‘dumb’ SD card are
numbered... The price will eventually come down to a level consumers will not be able to resist.”
The company is not resting on
its laurels and will continue to develop new intellectual property,
said Mr Tan. “It is inevitable that
we continue to invest in an endless cycle of innovation and research, and continue to come up
with more world-class technologies to change the way things are
used. If you have only one product, your company might not survive to see tomorrow... There are
many more new technologies up
our sleeves.”
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Source: The Straits Times © Singapore Press Holdings Limited. Reproduced with permission