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Comment by cwp | Hacker News Reader

From the Apple page on Thunderbolt: "you can use existing USB and FireWire peripherals — even connect to Gigabit Ethernet and Fibre Channel networks — using simple adapters."

So, twice as fast as USB 3.0 and compatible with existing devices. Doesn't seem like much of a fight. USB won't disappear overnight, but it's already obsolete.

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Thunderbolt may be technically superior in every single way, but unless other manufacturers use it for their laptops/motherboards, Apple's 10ish% market share is going to ensure that USB 3.0 "wins" ultimately. This will wind up being just like firewire where aside from Apple's stuff and a select few "Apple" manufacturers, nobody uses it and consumers either buy the more expensive Apple stuff, or use a dongle and see 0 benefit from the superior tech.

Apple also pioneered USB with the iMac. Because USB was the only way to connect anything to the iMac, it served as a catalyst for device makers to come out with USB devices, since they knew they had a captive market.

Once the number of USB peripherals reached critical mass, the general PC market followed suit.

So, will Thunderbolt adoption more closely resemble that of Firewire, or USB?

I believe the new macs still have USB ports, no? So what incentive do peripherals manufacturers have to use Thunderbolt and target just the new macbooks vs USB 3.0 and targeting everything?

But we're not talking about Apple's marketshare. We're talking about Intel's influence. And that's quite a bit different.

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