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Intel to Open up Thunderbolt Development This Quarter
- zdw 16y agoI'm thinking Thunderbolt will be a niche player going forward, similar to Firewire: - Requires extra chip on the logic board (like firewire) - Only a single vendor at this point (TI is the only reliably good Firewire chip vendor, similar to how NEC's USB chips are the best) - Doesn't have economies of scale (like firewire) - Meets most of the same needs that other competing, cheaper products also meet (like firewire) That said, I think firewire is great stuff, and thunderbolt is too. If some of these things change (say Intel integrates it into their next core logic chipset, expansion cards are very cheap [less than $50] or a killer 3rd party use for it comes up) I could see it becoming as standard as Firewire is.
- protomyth 16y agoIt has similarities, but I see a few differences that I think tip the balance toward acceptance: - USB3 is not integrated into Intel's chipsets - Thunderbolt (unlike Firewire) is a display connector - The NAB announcements this week give it some momentum Thunderbolt, to me, is a good fit for portables because it can replace the expansion slot, display connector, and firewire (high speed data) with one connector. Intel really is not supporting USB3 that well.
- r00fus 16y agoI wonder if the licensing is open or hampered by fees like Firewire was. 10Gb bi-directional with 2 channels is nothing to sneeze at, and if this is even as common as firewire, it will be a godsend to many folks. Synching a fresh 160GB ipod using USB2 is extremely slow.