The USB Flash Drive Alliance, founded in December 2003 by Samsung, Lexar Media, Kingston Technology and others, is a group of companies promoting the use of USB flash drives (also called "keydrives" and a variety of other names)."Keydrives." American Heritage Dictionary of the English Language, Fifth Edition. 2011. Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company 3 Dec. 2015 http://www.thefreedictionary.com/Keydrives
In 2003, according to the alliance, 50 million USB flash drives were sold in the US alone.
Alliance members Buffalo Technology Corsair Gaming Crucial Technology Infineon Technologies Kingston Technology Lexar Media Microsoft Phison PNY Technologies Samsung SimpleTech
See also USB USB flash drive U3 USB "smart" drives
References