Peripheral backwater
USB has been wildly popular so far. But because of its slow speed, it has been relegated to hooking up supporting-role PC devices: less-demanding mice, speakers and other low-bandwidth peripherals.
FireWire, by contrast, is an attractive alternative for connecting digital camcorders, scanners and similar high-bandwidth devices to PCs. Apple and Sony offer it on virtually every PC or notebook they sell.
The speedy USB 2.0, building on USB 1.1's huge acceptance, was expected to be a major challenger to FireWire. USB is built into 99 percent of PCs sold today, according to market researcher Cahners In-Stat Group.
Cahners predicts that by 2004, there will be 750 million USB-equipped PCs and peripherals in use vs. 112 million with FireWire.
FireWire is the standard for connecting digital camcorders to PCs, and storage maker Maxtor, among others, has made FireWire its preferred choice for external hard drives.
While putting the brakes on USB 2.0, Microsoft has extended FireWire support in Windows XP beyond that found in any earlier version of the operating system. Windows XP, for example, automatically treats a FireWire card as a network and as a peripheral connectivity device.
Microsoft also fine-tuned how Windows XP attaches to and maximises the multimedia capabilities of FireWire-equipped digital camcorders and similar devices.
With Windows XP supporting FireWire and its unique capabilities, such as networking, Kay predicted the connectivity option would eventually become standard fare on many PCs. While PC makers had resisted FireWire because of the expense of adding another port to a system, many have aggressively embraced the connectivity standard over the last six months.
Besides long-standing support from Apple and Sony, Compaq, Dell and Gateway widely offer FireWire, with the latter two PC makers adding the connectivity option to some portables as well as desktops.
"It's going to get harder and harder to ask, 'Why not FireWire?' if USB 2.0 gets further delayed," Kay said. "You need that kind of high-speed access."
