Hewlett Packard Not Convinced of the Value of Thunderbolt

[Northgrove]

He's just slow. His opinion will change in a few years.

Unless we suddenly stop wanting higher bandwidths and don't want to use more data.

That'd be a first in computer history.

 

[rmwebs]

We should all be well aware by now that one thing Apple is TERRIBLE at is setting industry standards.

Firewire was a fail and only ever existed on Macs and a very, very select number of desktops.

DisplayPort hasn't even made it onto any non-Apple product

Thunderbolt so far exists on a small selection of Apple hardware with no clear push or motivation to getting it adopted wider. Apple should be meeting with the Dell's and HP's of the world - they are the only people that have the volume and power to force the standard into the industry.

Apple simply sucks at getting new ports onto computers, period.

 

[maldoblaz]

12 years ago

When I got my first blue G3 tower, it had 2 FW400 ports that were not even mentioned in the promotion booklet. I recall there where 2 or 3 very expensive external HD options and video editing was made over SCSI arrays and ultra expensive PCI cards. It had USB 1.1 too that was just one year old good for mouse and printers (maybe). That was 12 years ago and it took a lot of time for 3rd party hardware makers turn over FW400 and it made it right. HP should believe in Thunderbolt: It will make it's way and well, Intel invented USB too...

 

[ChazUK]

Mac User will use TB and everyone processing media is hoping industry adopts it. Just take a look at musicians who used FW800 to connect their recording equipment or movie makers with huge 1080p files.

Meanwhile.... The best storage medium for purchased HD content today is shunned.

 

[Northgrove]

I love Thunderbolt, I think it will be great once the products start hitting the shelves. Why? Thunderbolt is exactly what you make it. Thunderbolt isn't really a protocol, it's a fast external pipeline to put protocols on. Why is that good? It can be anything. Need eSATA? Plug an eSATA adaptor into the TB port. Heck, you can even put full-fledged PCIe expansion cards in external housings and run them off Thunderbolt (graphics card only to a lesser degree, more interesting for storage, networking and multi-monitor solutions).

How is that not cool?

I agree. Some complain about having to buy dongles. But I think that is a small price to pay for the flexibility and speed. Good luck in getting optimal performance from an USB 3 -> eSATA adapter.

We should all be well aware by now that one thing Apple is TERRIBLE at is setting industry standards.

Firewire was a fail and only ever existed on Macs and a very, very select number of desktops.

Which never stopped me from purchasing a high-performance external hard drive with FireWire, or others from purchasing digital video cameras with FireWire. It wasn't a smash hit, but it was common enough, and existed in the cases were it was needed.

 

[La Porta]

Same argument that went around between Firewire and USB a few years ago.


One thing that is lost on a lot of people is the convenience of having two different protocols and ports for different functions. My three FW hard drives are on the FW bus, and all the other peripherals are on USB. FW800 is certainly faster and makes sense for these HDs. USB turns into a nightmare if you are trying to connect your 10+ peripherals AND your HDs all into the computer. I don't want to have 3-4 USB hubs all chained together, it's just a pain. Having variety is not a bad thing, it lets you specialize what somethings are used for. Personally, I loved my original iPod connecting through Firewire, it just made things simpler and less cumbersome (for me at least).

Firewire was a fail and only ever existed on Macs and a very, very select number of desktops.

How about all the laptops that I see around with 4-pin FW ports that have non-descript "IEEE 1394" marked on them? That counts as Firewire, too.

 

[tundrabuggy]

Since you missed the obvious point, when your they going to ship products? I'm going to sell you a car now that can run on this special fuel, increasing power and efficiency but 75% at 1/3 the price gasoline. The only catch is that the fuel isn't going to be readily available for 4 years (average time people keep their vehicles before they upgrade) would you go ahead and buy it now or what until you can easily get the fuel?

There will NOT be a HEALTHY market for peripherals for 2+ years. People buying computers now will be about ready for an upgrade by that time. There is absolutely no value in adding for people looking to buy a computer right now.

Wow, you certainly are a step behind regarding technology. NAB had many thunderbolt devices working now (Shipping JULY) not 2 + years or 4 years. LaCie, Matrox, Black Magic had incredible demos. This will be perfectly timed with Lion and FinalCut Pro X. Apple will take over the market for Video Production including DSLR. Apple, Sony, Panasonic, Canon, Dell, Intel and many other big names are behind this. Should they all heed your warning?? Or do you think that you and HP might be missing something? Your analogy is waaay off.

 

[bananaboi]

We should all be well aware by now that one thing Apple is TERRIBLE at is setting industry standards.

Firewire was a fail and only ever existed on Macs and a very, very select number of desktops.

DisplayPort hasn't even made it onto any non-Apple product

Thunderbolt so far exists on a small selection of Apple hardware with no clear push or motivation to getting it adopted wider. Apple should be meeting with the Dell's and HP's of the world - they are the only people that have the volume and power to force the standard into the industry.

Apple simply sucks at getting new ports onto computers, period.

1.)Firewire is found on a plethora of laptops..
2.)Displayport is used on lenovo thinkpads.. If you meant miniDP, then you might be right
3.)I agree thunderbolt is a fail so far.. However, it's only been a couple of months, so we will have to wait until the first third party devices are actually out for sale.
4.) Apple does not suck at getting new ports.. the 30pin connector for iphones/ipads/ipods has been a huge success.

 

[RedTomato]

Don't get me wrong on Thunderbolt. It's still in its infancy and you can't find crap for it yet. But I'm betting at some point we had no roads in this country.

You lose the bet. There were roads in the British colonies before the USA was constituted. So there was never a point in the history of the USA when it had no roads. The same is true for most modern countries - they had roads and other infrastructure before forming their current incarnation.

Just being picky

 

[Smacky]

More like thunderfail, or failbolt

 

[PlipPlop]

Well yea , the millions of people using HP printers dont need a super fast cable to to print their office documents. Adding a Thunderbolt port would just needlessly increase the cost of a HP printer. People would end up buying another manufactures printer instead.

 

[Steve121178]

Not a chance for USB 3. It has no advantages at all compared to Thunderbolt.

Apart from the fact that it's being implemented in practically all new desktops & laptops

 

[HyperZboy]

And HP's opinion is relevant, why? The smartest think theyve ever done is to buy Palm. Thunderbolt is an amazing technology, I only hope it is supported by peripherals.

And how is that Palm acquisition working out for them market share wise? HAHA!

Well, by having 1-2 TB ports one would NOT need to have:
- VGA
- DVI
- HDMI
- DisplayPort
- eSATA
- ExpressCard

Just think about the reduced size and thickness. Isn't that alone an excellent reason?

Excellent point.

And the person who made the "horse and buggy" comment also made me laugh. I hold onto an HP scientific calculator for just those situations when the computer won't boot & the iPhone breaks and I can't use the calculator programs and also hold onto 2 HP desktop computers just in case all of my Apple Macs fail on the same day! LOL

 

[fat jez]

Right now, almost every video card is still VGA and DVI. Only Macs have settled on Mini Displayport.

There are two mini display port connectors on the back of the AMD Radeon 6970 card in my PC and a lot of die-hard gamers are using this for Eyefinity (multi-monitor gaming). I also have a displayport interface on my Dell monitors (U2711).

 

[throttlemeister]

And HP's opinion is relevant, why? Not sure what they've contributed to the industry, besides being another PC maker clone, so their 'value proposition' is of little concern. The smartest think theyve ever done is to buy Palm. Thunderbolt is an amazing technology, I only hope it is supported by peripherals.

You are answering your own question. HP being the largest PC vendor sells a bucket load of computers. If companies like HP decide it is not worth to put in, they can essentially kill the technology by not supporting it. You may not like it, and it might be wrong. The simple fact is because of their size and marketshare, their opinion matters no matter what any fanboy feels about it and you can be damn sure Intel listens and will try to change their minds.

 

[OllyW]

Not a chance for USB 3. It has no advantages at all compared to Thunderbolt.

It's got a couple of advantages.

USB 3 products are already freely available in the stores and don't come with a premium price.

Thunderbolt is a far superior technology and I just hope it doesn't struggle to get a foothold because the inferior USB 3 has already swamped the market.

 

[dr Dunkel]

Remember when mini displayport was supposed to be the next big thing?

Once again apple will trot out how they are setting an 'industry standard' when hardly anyone else uses it. Here we go again...

Apple still thinks Mini Display Port is the industry standard for HD video

 

[MorphingDragon]

Apple still thinks Mini Display Port is the industry standard for HD video

Displayport has pushed out HDMI for high end computing. Most "professional" grade screens and video cards now are DVI, DP or mDP only. It might not be for consumer video at the moment, but because of the trickle down effect that hardware manufacturers use, soon it will be the main display standard for computers.

tl;dr ATi and nVidia LIKE DP and mDP, it will only be a matter of time.

 

[Dusky600]

Wirelessly posted (Mozilla/5.0 (iPhone; U; CPU iPhone OS 4_3_1 like Mac OS X; pt-pt) AppleWebKit/533.17.9 (KHTML, like Gecko) Version/5.0.2 Mobile/8G4 Safari/6533.18.5)

The flop begins

 

[Macsavvytech]

People actually think the reason for slow sync speeds is because of USB. Oh my lol The speed that the data is transferred at is nowhere near the capacity of USB2, sticking a TB port on iDevices will make no difference to sync times until Apple use much faster flash ROM in their products.

Don't think your right about that.

 

[SeaFox]

Hewlett Packard Not Convinced of the Value of Thunderbolt

That's fine with me. I stopped being convinced of the value of HP computers years ago.

 

[Macsavvytech]

We should all be well aware by now that one thing Apple is TERRIBLE at is setting industry standards.

I suppose in your opinion then Thunderbolt will be a great success as Apple wasn't the one that set it as an industry standard.
I bet you love your wireless "N" standard routers as well, not like Apple invented that...

 

[igazza]

Hp just dont wanna support it because apple do.

 

[Erwin-Br]

How is Thunderbolt and firewire even similiar?

It's similar to FireWire in the fact that you can't stick a USB cable into it, without an adaptor. And that's a big deal for a lot of people.

 

[PlipPlop]

You are answering your own question. HP being the largest PC vendor sells a bucket load of computers. If companies like HP decide it is not worth to put in, they can essentially kill the technology by not supporting it. You may not like it, and it might be wrong. The simple fact is because of their size and marketshare, their opinion matters no matter what any fanboy feels about it and you can be damn sure Intel listens and will try to change their minds.

They also purchased EDS making them a massive player in the enterprise sector looking after large companies IT systems. Not to mention the mass of computers and printers they sell. I have a HP laptop and couldnt be more happy with it.