Hot off the heels of Intel‘s USB 2.0 announcement, the 1394 Trade Association issued a press release (“IEEE 1394 Product Development Accelerating in PC, Consumer Electronics Sectors“)which trumpets the many existing IEEE 1394 (a.k.a. FireWire) products running at 400 Megabit/second and predicts that 800 Megabit/second products will be in production by spring of the year 2000.
As long as FireWire continues to improve, it will always be one step ahead of USB, and be better suited for high-bandwidth applications such as connecting hard disks, digital video cameras, and removable mass storage, while USB will be used for low-speed devices such as keyboards and mice which will benefit from the lower-cost of a slower bus.
The press release also predicts that USB will take at least three years before USB approaches FireWire speeds, and that Intel’s claims of 400 Mbps USB is just a lot of hype.
