Intel now says it will support both its Thunderbolt interface, which first appeared on the recent MacBook Pro revision, and USB 3.0 sometime in 2012. Presumably if it supports USB 3.0 then it will support all previous versions of USB.
Intel made the announcement at a developer conference in Beijing, calling the technologies (ThunderBolt and USB) “complementary.” This won’t be HD DVD vs. Blu-ray all over again.
This comes only one day after AMD made a big splash by announcing that at least two of its upcoming APUs will support USB 3.0 right out of the box, meaning motherboard manufactures won’t have to add a separate USB controller to offer USB support. Helps keep costs down.
The addition of USB 3.0 support to its Ivy Bridge platform—you’ll recall that Sandy Bridge was recently launched—means peripheral makers won’t have to fret over the increased adoption of USB 3.0. In other words, if you’re Company A and you make Device 1, which connects via USB 3.0, you know there will already be a potentially big userbase to work with.