There might be a relative dearth of Thunderbolt peripherals and accessories right now, but just wait until 2012. That’s when Thunderbolt will explode on Windows machines, which should open the floodgates on every sort of Thunderbolt accessory you can think of.
Intel VP Mooly Eden confirmed this morning at the Intel Developer Forum that Thunderbolt’s revolutionary technology will go from being an Apple exclusive to a port on every PC starting sometime in the first half of 2012. Asus and Acer are the two companies that will be the first to market with Thunderbolt machines.
Usually, a standard doesn’t really explode until it hits Windows machines, so this is all great news even for Mac fans. I wonder where this leaves USB 3, though.
[via Gizmodo]
John Brownlee is a writer for Fast Company, and a contributing writer here at CoM. He has also written for Wired, Playboy, Boing Boing, Popular Mechanics, VentureBeat, and Gizmodo. He lives in Boston with his wife and two parakeets. You can follow him here on Twitter.
29 responses to “Windows Will Finally Get Apple’s Thunderbolt Technology in 2012”
Wow, what took them so long? We’ve already had it for ages. Get with the program, MS
At least we’ll start seeing cheap Thunderbot accessories.Â
Hey, anyone else smell FireWire?
When there’s SmokeWire …
what do you mean “where does this leave USB 3.0?” Am i under the wrong assumption that intel’s new ivy bridge chipset will integrate USB 3.0?
USB 2.0 is not going anywhere. We all need it. USB 3.0 will replace it eventually as it should have already. They will coexist, like USB 2.0 and thunderbolt do now.
Omfdog more cables…
 by 2013, they better come out with some kinda Mega-ULTRA high-speed WIRELESS HDMI something…
I’m sick of transfering data tru these messy cables. Aren’t we suppose to be in the wireless computing era as promised by these tech giants a decade ago???
I guess you don’t know this, but our wireless devices are nowhere near 10GBps, and probably won’t be for a while. I would much rather use a “messy” cable and back up my whole hard drive in a minute than do it wirelessly and wait 5 hours.
WHO CARES?? I’m crying reading news about microcrap on MAC blogs. Dear authors, please, please, stop it.
Really? You mean you aren’t intelligent enough to see that one it hits MS, many more manufacturers will develop more products with it.Â
For a second, I thought that that laptop there was a Macbook.. wow, these clones are turning into carbon copies!
Displayport or USB…..?
Since Apple has it with Displayport and Sony has it with USB.
Does anyone here realize that regardless of how much info can be jammed down a pipe, you are still constrained by the speed of the hardware itself.
Hard drives are not that fast.
Makes perfect sense…if only the politics of these tech companies dont get in the way.
1) This has nothing to do with Microsoft. 2) It’s Mac not MAC. 3) I suspect you’re trolling.
I always thought it was Intel’s thunderbolt technology and apple just came up with a flashy moniker?Â