Thunderbolt Ascendent: Wider Availability Of T-Bolt On PCs Forecast Come April

Digitimes’ Monica Chen and Joseph Tsai report that
Intel recently notified its partners that the company will fully release its Thunderbolt technology in April, 2012, and that several top-tier PC players are preparing to launch Thunderbolt-supported motherboards, notebooks and desktop PCs, according to insider sources.

To speed up standardization of Thunderbolt, Intel is cooperating with Apple, which is currently the sole vendor offering PC products equipped with Thunderbolt technology, but as demand for ThunderBolt is growing, Intel is ready to release it for wider use.

Chen and Tsai note that adding Thunderbolt support costs more than $20, and is in competitoin with USB 3.0 to become the next-generation data transmission dominant technology. They note that while Thunderbolt didn’t receive a lot of attention from the IT industry when first announced, Apple’s adoption of the technology into products including its desktop and laptop auxiliary monitors, MacBook Pro, iMac, MacBook Air and MacBook Mini, has boosted demand, and with the cost including Thunderbolt support in PCs expected to drop in the second half of 2012, the industry insider sources predict the technology being standardized gradually in the future.

Sony and Asustek Computer are expected to be first up adopting Thunderbolt in their their high-end notebook products, and Chen and Tsai report that Gigabyte Technology has been aggressively adopting new transmission technology into its product line, is also expected to launch Thunderbolt-featured motherboard in April.

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