Those hoping that mainstream adoption of Thunderbolt from PC manufacturers would help spur an increase in reasonably priced accessories won’t particularly enjoy today’s news from Acer. Apple might be pushing ahead with Intel’s Thunderbolt technology, but it seems PC makers are choosing USB 3.0 as a less expensive alternative offering comparable performance for the majority of consumers. Acer tells Cnet that it is removing Thunderbolt from its Aspire S5 Ultrabook this year, which was one of the only Windows notebooks to ship with the technology:
Unfortunately for Apple users, lack of mainstream adoption means we’ll likely see less companies taking the plunge into developing Thunderbolt versions of their products. Intel is quick to point out that a few Intel powered products from Asus, Dell and others already include Thunderbolt, but Acer’s decision to opt for USB 3.0 only is a good indication of the difficulty Intel is having in getting companies to adopt the I/O standard that currently only provides advantages for only small percentage of mostly professional users.
Apple, however, isn’t backing down from its commitment to the technology across both its pro and non-pro Mac lines. At WWDC, the company announced that its revamped Mac Pro would be arriving with six Thunderbolt ports as one of the first products to adopt Intel’s second generation Thunderbolt standard that doubles transfer speeds to 20GB/s and introduces 4K video support:
