According to several industry publications, Intel has no plans to support the IEEE 1394, Apple’s FireWire, standard anytime soon in its motherboard chipsets. Instead, Intel is backing the development of USB 2.0 (“USB 2.0 to Challenge FireWire“), which will be just as fast or faster than FireWire. It is rumored that Intel is not backing FireWire because Intel would have to pay Apple licensing fees for every FireWire chipset shipped. Without Intel’s backing, it’s possible that FireWire will go along the way of OpenDoc, QuickDraw GX, CyberDog, and the floppy disk.

In other uplifting news, Via, a Wintel chipset maker in Taiwan, announced (“Short take: Via chipsets to go with IEEE 1394 by next year“) that they will support FireWire in their chipsets next year. In fact, Via is projecting that 40% of computers shipped at the end of next year will have FireWire onboard.