FireWire’s Strong Presence in Notebook PCs, Storage, Instrumentation Applications Points to Solid Future Growth

Growth in the storage, peripherals, industrial and Windows-based PC notebook market sectors continues to propel the 1394 (FireWire) standard to another strong year of growth.

New notebook PCs from global leaders such as Acer, Dell, Fujitsu, Hewlett Packard, Toshiba and other manufacturers all include the 1394 standard, and the 800 Megabit/second version is now a virtual standard in storage systems from all of the leading manufacturers, providing as much as four times the transfer speed of USB 2.0 while placing far less burden on the system processor.  The number of 1394-equipped notebook PCs has increased by some 20 percent in 2008, while the number of 1394-equipped set top boxes shipped worldwide is up more than 25 percent, and PC peripherals between 17 to 20 percent.

Mac Users Insist on FireWire
The popularity of FireWire has been registered enthusiastically in the weeks following the decision to remove it from a couple members of the Macbook family. Comments from users range from anger to disbelief.  Said one web logger:  “FireWire is too solid and ubiquitous a transfer protocol to ignore. It has allowed the democratization of media creation workflows. It has helped those of us in the professional consumer area of the spectrum to advance steadily in our markets, upgrading one piece of gear at a time, without worry that our investment in upgraded technology would require a huge financial leap or complete re-tooling."

FireWire in HDV Camera Applications
Virtually all HDV cameras continue to rely on FireWire for transfers, including some models that have become very popular with independent producers. The installed base of FireWire camcorders is enormous, including many high-definition applications.

In fact, many of the complaints regarding the removal of FireWire from lower end MacBooks came from professionals and amateurs who use them for on the road capture, and often use FireWire and Mac Pros in the studio. FireWire remains the preferred format for multichannel audio interfaces.

1394 Emerging in the Industrial and Automotive Sectors
In addition, new markets are emerging. The 1394-Automotive standard has developed as a major specification for vehicle entertainment, navigation and other automotive applications, and the first 1394-based vehicle networks will appear in 2009.  Also, the completion of the new UWB over Coax specification has added a powerful and efficient new standard for whole home networking. 

"1394 has continued its strong growth across a broad range of applications and market sectors in 2008," said James Snider, executive director of the 1394 Trade Association. “FireWire delivers the best speed and performance of any competing standard for a wide range of applications, from hard disk storage to industrial cameras. In addition, it is a fixture in the Windows PC notebook market, and we will see Microsoft support for the new 800 Megabit/second version of FireWire, 1394b, in its upcoming Windows releases. 

We have seen stable and steady increases in 1394's adoption in the industrial camera and automation global markets.  And, the 1394-Automotive standard, which was developed in conjunction with major automakers worldwide, is gaining significant traction now, bringing the comprehensive in-vehicle network to cars within the next year."