Thunderbolt is a hit!
Summary: Thunderbolt isn't just a faster USB - and Mac buyers see that. I'm calling it: despite the sparse product offering Thunderbolt is a hit.
Shipping times at the Apple online store show that Thunderbolt is a hit with Mac buyers. And that's with almost no Thunderbolt products available. Expect great things when many more Thunderbolt peripherals start shipping in the next 6 months.
Shipping estimates The Thunderbolt peripherals for sale from Apple are limited to the Thunderbolt Display - a 27" display with built-in Thunderbolt USB/FireWire adapter - and the Promise Pegasus arrays. Both are available as standalone options and as system add-ons.
As system add-ons - purchased with a new MacBook Pro or MacBook Air - they're available immediately. But as standalone items they have much longer lead times: 2-3 weeks for the Thunderbolt Display and 3-5 weeks for the Thunderbolt storage arrays.
And this means what? Several things:
- Ship times for the individual products wouldn't be so long if there weren't a lot of folks buying the Thunderbolt products with their new system.
- The Thunderbolt Display is not as popular - or Apple forecasts better than Promise - but people like the Thunderbolt expansion it offers. The non-Thunderbolt 27" LED Cinema display ships with 24 hours.
- The Pegasus Thunderbolt arrays are popular: every other storage array the Apple Store sells is available within 24 hours.
- The Pegasus Thunderbolt arrays are popular despite costing roughly 50% more than the slower, non-Thunderbolt arrays. Performance sells!
The Storage Bits take HP's decision to leave the PC market reflects both a maturing market and the inability of PC makers to earn decent margins on boring me-too products. Apple owns the high-end, high-margin PC business, while taking share from the Wintel notebook market with the iPad.
With the advent of the Mac Thunderbolt-everywhere strategy Apple is now differentiating the Mac and the iPad based on I/O. The iPad is the new MacBook.
USB 3.0 peripherals are proliferating at premiums that range from almost nothing to 100% over USB 2 products. USB 3.0's success is assured due to price and bandwidth.
Thunderbolt meets a different need: it extends a system's PCIe bus outside the box. What does this mean?
The Mac Pro tower design - and Wintel towers as well - have been the only systems that offer user-accessible bus access, until Thunderbolt. Now a skinny little notebook or a mini form factor box can offer what only towers had before.
Which means that I/O oriented apps - those with large storage capacities or specialized I/O - don't need to be run on bulky towers. Any Thunderbolt notebook can do the job.
Which leaves computationally intensive jobs to tower configurations that can support the memory, CPU cores, GPUs and cooling needed for simulation, transcoding and rendering. Call it consumer High Performance Computing.
Apple's industrial designers know the possibilities. I trust they're designing great products that will exploit Thunderbolt to the max.
Courteous comments welcome, of course. Saddened to see Steve Jobs resign as CEO, but confident that a great design company - like Porsche, Herman Miller and Apple - can maintain their mojo for many decades through many CEOs. The key is that great designers want to work at great design companies.
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Talkback
RE: Thunderbolt is a hit!
I like how he associates long ship times
With success of a product. Perhaps they just aren't producing very many and so it sells out easily. Thunderbolt is another product that Intel is trying to force down the market's throat that no one cares about, just like they did with Rambus memory. USB 3.0 works great. Firewire works great. And let's face it, a 10GB serial interface isn't all that useful unless you have an insanely fast hard drive. Video? DisplayPort, HDMI, DVI are all more than suitable. And even that is supposedly going to be replaced with patch cables going forward because that gives huge bandwidth on an interface cable that is ubiquitous and low cost.
Not the first time Robin has been way off and I'm sure it won't be the last. "There are no peripherals that use it but it's a success." Right...
RE: Thunderbolt is a hit!
RE: Thunderbolt is a hit!
I agree. Thunderbolt does not bring anything new to the table but a reason to waste $$$.
RE: Thunderbolt is a hit!
um... yeah.. I'm suuuuure that's the reason.
::eyeroll::
RE: Thunderbolt is a hit!
RE: Thunderbolt is a hit!
RE: Thunderbolt is a hit!
I actually agree with that point. But what his response has to do with MS... I have no clue where you got that from.
RE: Thunderbolt is a hit!
RE: Thunderbolt is a hit!
Assuming you're right... Let's say someone supports Apple's every move, would you say that person has no ability to comment on technology except through Apple colored glasses? I tend to give people a little more credit than that, and look at what they said... I try not to presume their thoughts.
I agree with Rick_Kl here, but for the wrong reasons
When someone such as Rick_Kl who supports Apple at every move views comments from others questioning that move, they automaticly think it's because they're NBMer's.
If anyone choses something other then an Apple product (lets say AppleTV) instead choosing Roku, it's not because they see a better value or fit with the Roku, it's because they're "Apple haters".
And they never question their own thoughts or opinions, just others, and they don't see that.
I can't see how the blogger connects long lead times to that of overly popular, when just last month the same blogger was connecting long lead times with lack of interest or production problems, since it was competitor's product.
RE: Thunderbolt is a hit!
RE: Thunderbolt is a hit!
Which is exactly my point. You questioned LiquidLearner's motives asking "Is it because Microsoft was not involved?" without him/her even mentioning MS. Why the double standard?
RE: Thunderbolt is a hit!
RE: Thunderbolt is a hit!
RE: Thunderbolt is a hit!
RE: Thunderbolt is a hit!
Maybe as it develops but for now if there is only a few devices that work with it then it will remain an unused battery drainer for now.
RE: Thunderbolt is a hit!
RE: Thunderbolt is a hit!
Substitute 'Firewire' for 'Thunderbolt' and you'll see why he (and most people not obsessed with Apple) has this opinion.
Being the best does not mean being a winner or even a 'hit'. Being the thing most people actually use, is.
RE: Thunderbolt is a hit!
Once again.. Only the beginning.. Until there is a wide product offering then how can it be a hit? Using hit in this way implies that it is loved and used by the masses just like they would use the word hit to describe a new song by a musician or performer. Meaning many people like and actually listen to it.
I am not saying that it won't become more popular as it is a great technology that has lots of potential. Just now it is limited by the fact there are only a few things that work with it and only a select few have the need for it.