Market research firm In-Stat/MDR reports that Universal Serial Bus (USB) will continue to be the most successful interface used on PCs. The company also said that USB 2.0 would become the dominant standard within the next few years.
USB 2.0 is just now becoming available on PCs, and is still deferred on the Mac by Apple in favor of the older 1.1 standard. In-Stat/MDR said the interface would experience a 220 percent compound annual growth rate through 2006.
The firm reported that PCs with USB 2.0 host controllers would be seen on the market in quantity throughout the first half of 2002. Later this year, In-Stat/MDR expects PCs with USB 2.0 integrated into the core logic chipset to appear. Significant numbers of peripherals that use the added bandwidth afforded by USB 2.0 will continue to come to market throughout 2002. Also noted was USB On-The-Go, a new standard designed for portable devices to connect to each other without the use of a PC. The standard is targeted at PDAs, portable digital music players and mobile phones.
According to the research firm, USB 2.0 will be adopted more slowly by consumer electronics makers than computer peripheral makers, since speed requirements are generally lower for consumer electronics. In-Stat/MDR also indicated that consumer electronics have more options for transferring data — including IEEE 1394, or as it’s known to Mac users, FireWire.