FireWire’s future continues to look bright. Leaders of the 1394 Trade Association, an international organization dedicated to promoting FireWire, told attendees of last week’s Nikkei Electronics annual seminar that the IEEE 1394 standard continues its “rapid expansion” into new generations of products in Japan, South Korea, North America and Europe.
James Snider, the trade association’s executive director and Max Bassler of Molex, the vice chairman, presented almost 500 engineers in the Tokyo Conference Center with an update on FireWire’s leadership in home networking, automotive networking and other applications, including new digital cameras and PC peripherals.
“Japan has fully embraced the standard, and continues to develop new consumer electronics and computer products that incorporate it,” said Snider. “We expect strong growth for 1394, as the electronics economy moves out of recession worldwide this year.”
At the conference, South Korean engineering leaders revealed that over two-dozen new FireWire-equipped products are now in design and planned for a 2003 rollout.