That's why Intel's purported move to omit TB from its standard chipset is so full of failure. The only reason you do that is if you want to kill TB, just like lack of standard FireWire support from Intel doomed FW to irrelevance.
Putting it into the core chipset is premature and wrong at this point. TB is still new and immature. There is zero reason to put it into a chipset that every single design is going to pick up. This is the same fundamentally flawed reasoning that proclaimed doom-and-gloom for USB 3.0 before Intel tagged it for inclusion.
The current gen got SATA III ( which was prevalent on many boards as separate chip before inclusion)
The next gen gets USB 3.0 ( which is prevalent on most current boards with separate chip now.)
TB isn't prevalent on anything expect Apple. And that is only because Steve probably decreed it be so... not from market demand.
When there are 20 different non-Apple boards with TB included
then can talk about when the schedule TB for inclusion. Until then, it is unproven. No tech should "have to be included" for it to get picked up into multiple designs.
That would be indicative of a failure.
Putting USB 3.0 into the core chipset will help TB because that opens up room in many board designs to now put an discrete TB chip into the "hole" that the USB 3.0 ( and perhaps SATA III ) chipset occupied previously.
It took USB 3.0 two years to get up enough momentum for inclusion after the standard passed. TB really doesn't even have a standard yet. At least an open standard.
The problem for TB is that it is going to need another rev before gets stable. It does PCI-e v2.0 and DisplayPort v1.1a but those two protocols are going into the rear view mirror now. Many vendors are going to get skittish about putting DP or PCI-e streams behind TB. Similarly, it pragmatically requires that there are graphics on the motherboard (or at least non classic PCI-e cards). The next two iterations of Intel/AMD processors will make integrated graphics universal. At that point, TB is a much more natural design fit. Before then it can be a kludge.
Lots of system vendors were trying to digest USB 3.0. Nobody, including Apple, wanted to deal with USB 3.0 and TB at the same time. There are lots of good reasons for that (e.g., management of complexity, controlling costs, etc.) that have little to do with the long term success or either USB 3.0 or TB.
Some folks tried to paint TB as the "one port to rule them all". That was just setting it up for failure. TB was never going to replace USB. (and therefore USB 3.0). It perhaps over time remove eSATA, FW, ExpressCard and a few other "second tier" ports from the field, but the cost structure and technology was never going to remove USB. As much as TB is applied to docking stations and dongles it isn't going to remove the other legacy connectors much either. It strength lies in aggregating, not removing ports from service to the user.
That said an indicator that TB is going to fail is if most system vendors do not adopt it as the standard docking station connector. If they continue to insist on proprietary connectors then TB will have failed to penetrate a natural targeted market. If it succeeds then it will take a position similar to FW as being the "other" standard port that most systems have.
It is easy for Apple to make the "docking station" decision. They only had one device and the TB version ( TB display) is an improvement. Similarly, for the most part (probably 96+% ), their systems sold are closed graphics. Again a natural fit for TB.
