I think sm sell chinese produced product and is probably one up from beri and 2 down from studio projects. they are new and don't have a lot of rep.
you would buy this to use as a preamp or direct in or plug your cd/cassette/vinyl record player into it. it has its own converters and sends stuff out on sp/dif that you plug into your computer. some motherboards have a sp/dif right on them now, not a lot, and i can't track the trend. i think its going away in favor of firewire.
just a wag, but i think it would give casual users, first timers, good value for the money. that said, its not a lot of money.
it sucks, you would be better off with a mixer, the spdif is an optional add on that THEY DON"T EVEN MAKE YET! so all this does is send analog audio to a sound card that i guess they assume you already have.
I can see this used in other contries to dupe cd's and vinyl if for some reason you could not just copy the cd's in your computer, but unless it has a pair of millenia quality preamps in it, barf.