Apple’s introduction of new iMacs with 1394b (FireWire 800) this week demonstrates that FireWire 800 is gaining significant momentum, the 1394 Trade Association said in a press release issued late yesterday. The 1394 Trade Association is worldwide organization dedicated to the advancement and enhancement of the IEEE 1394 standard.
The two new members of Apple’s iMac line include two 1394 ports, one using 1394a (FireWire 400) and the other 1394b (FireWire 800). Apple CEO Steve Jobs highlighted the presence of FireWire 800, indicating that 1394b is now on all iMacs.
Apple holds about 21 percent of the retail PC market in the U.S.; analysts expect that figure to increase significantly this year and into 2009. Jobs indicated that Mac growth for the last four quarters is three times overall PC industry growth.
“Apple’s decision to incorporate 1394b into all of its iMacs is another indication of increasing momentum for the ‘b’ version of FireWire,” said James Snider, executive director of the 1394 Trade Association. “The storage product designers set the pace by adopting FireWire 800 for hard disk drives, and now, with this announcement from Apple, 1394b is in the mainstream.”
1394b delivers 800 Megabit/second bandwidth and can move audio and video up to 10 meters, while delivering the quality of service provided by the 1394 standard. It has been adopted by all of the leading providers of high end storage products this year, with high end hard drives from Seagate, Western Digital, La Cie and others gaining market share worldwide.
1394b silicon is now available at favorable prices. Texas Instruments Inc. offers a complete variety of 1394b devices, the TSB81 PHY and TSB82 Link series, including a mil-spec version. Oxford Semiconductor earlier this year introduced its OX936 series of devices that supports 1394b and hardware RAID with a peak performance of 250MBytes/s. Also last winter Agere Systems, now part of LSI Logic, introduced the first ICs that integrate 1394b with the PCI Express bus (PCIe) on one chip, its TrueFIRE device, providing designers of PC, notebooks and consumer electronic devices with a richer and more versatile feature set. “The introduction of 1394b in all iMacs is a major step forward in making 1394b mainstream in computer and peripheral equipment,” said Jalil Oraee, a founder and chief technical officer of Oxford Semiconductor.
More information: www.1394ta.org
[Attribution: Macsimum News. Thanks to MacDailyNews Reader “Bizarro Ballmer” for the heads up.]
MacDailyNews Note: On May 29, 2002, The 1394 Trade Association and Apple announced that the FireWire trademark, logo and symbol had been adopted as a brand identity for the IEEE 1394 connection standard in a no-fee license agreement between the 1394 Trade Association and Apple. In addition, Apple granted the TA the right to sub-license the FireWire Trademark for use on products, packaging and promotion of the standard.
Great news, but how do go from some reports of 5% to this number of 21%? Sounds like the same things are not being compared.
21% of the U.S. retail market of computers that use FireWire would probably be the correct parsing. Low-end, no-profit PCs don’t include FireWire.
21% of retail PC. A lot different than total PC sales, which, as been covered here before, includes POS terminals, and bulk purchasae of office PCs for the drones.
The way to look at this is that, given the CHOICE, 1 in 5 people will choose a Mac. Work for me has always meant whatever PC windows crapfest they have. Personal use is another story. Hence the House of Macs I currently have.
-Jay
They’re saying Apple has 21 percent market share of the PC’s that have Firewire…
-Robert. no they are not
“The 1394 Trade Association is worldwide organization dedicated to the advancement and enhancement of the IEEE 1394 standard.”
Screw them and standards. I can’t wait for Microsoft to finalize the MS-EZ Connect™ interface specification for PC’s and laptops, cameras, printers, etc. There’s gonna be Ultimate, Business and Home versions of the interface. Should be simple to use.
This new interface will be the worldwide leader in peripheral connectivity and the geniuses in Redmond won’t have to answer to some know-it-alls at some stupid standards organization. You Apple lemmings will be left out in the cold with your USB and firewire interfaces on your proprietary MACs.
Everyone knows a real standard is determined by market share. It’s a de facto fact.
Your potential. Our passion.™
“Apple holds about 21 percent of the retail PC market in the U.S.; analysts expect that figure to increase significantly this year and into 2009.”
They’re saying nothing about Firewire in this statement.
This means that when you strip out all the cash tills and the 5 extra PC’s that sit there idle doing nothing in IT department because they are there to act as back up when PC’s crash and need to be taken in for repair, this is the Mac’s true US market share, not 2-3-5-6% dependant on which troll you ask.
Speaking of trolls, any of them like to comment on this?
I was birthed in a cabbage field.
I’m not a number junkie, but I have never believed this 5% BS. It’s like weapons of mass destruction in Iraq: a convenient fairy tale propogated by those who profit if you believe it.
Zune Tang: Blog Whore
Ah, the future of Firewire sure does look GLOSSY.
BWAAHAAHAA!
“It’s a de facto fact.”
That might be one of the funniest things I’ve ever read anywhere.
Retail is like saying ‘street’ sales. Take a walk over to your local coffeeshop and count the laptops. Rinse, repeat…. I’m in a very large, old, Boston-area university, and sales to students and faculty (not to IT departments or administration droids) is well into the 50% Mac region, and I don’t see any slackening of this trend.
For retail I can believe the 21% figure. Nearly all businesses will buy through suppliers or mail order/online to save costs. Roughly half of consumers probably buy through other channels too. Remember that Dell’s entire market share is non-retail.
So 21% retail probably does translate to 5.5% overall or whatever Apple’s current share is.
Zune Tang — I believe MS-EZ Connect™ was recently renamed Windows LiveConnect Rich Content Edition™. Just FYI.
“It’s like weapons of mass destruction in Iraq . . .”
Why pick on Catholics?
I think I read somewhere it was again renamed to
Windows LiveConnect Rich Content Edition SP 76™
aren’t weapons of mass destruction Protestants? Rather than Catholics?
the differences between sales, retail sales, home vs buis use, and install vs market share are very telling if you understand the numbers…..
microsoft recently made a big deal about how soon there would be more windows machines than cars. if the majority of them are in a back office not being used, or are there because IIS needs a machine per web address, or are in a landfill, does that really impress anyone?
Twisted Mac freak: You really made me laugh, and I am catholic….thanks !
1394 is nearly dead. MS and others killed off the HAVI/1394 work that would deliver single cable interconnect and menu-based tv interaction demoed way back in 2000 at CES by Sony – awesome demo, no meat behind it. While a nice true peer-to-peer Network standard, 1394 just has not caught on. USB will dominate, especially now that there’s wireless USB. Sad to see superior technology fail, but that’s what’s about to happen. Maybe we can win one with Blue-Ray?
No. It’s going to be called:
Windows LiveConnect Rich Live Content Rich Live Edition 76™
If you knew about the WMD argument, you’d also know that it was one argument (of about 10) supporting the Iraq invasion. You’d also know that it was based on the best available intel. You’d also know a lot of different things that really have nothing to do with Macs. That you feel the need to keep pushing your fever-swamp ideology in a computer form tells me everything that I need to know. You are simply insecure.
You don’t know the history of fever-swamp ideology, I do.
I liked Firewire, but there are much better standards now…like eSATA. Your going to see more and more eSATA plugs built into computers, offering external storage at internal speeds for not many $$$$.