I presented a view of how I expect I2O to play out over the coming years. It would be premature for Intel or anyone else to hype the technology to the general user public. At the moment there is a vacuum of motherboards or attachments for PCs, and so far no one has mentioned Windows 95 being made I2O ready. Even if they existed they wouldn't have much yet to connect to in the way of servers. Everything in due course.
I2O must first become pervasive on servers, including various peripherals (like tape backups and RAIDs) and networking equipment. The debut in Atlanta is a fair amount of hoopla to get the server side established. Also, I2O is beginning to receive favorable press in trade mags. For example, the cover title for the October Embedded Systems Programming magazine is, "Intelligent I/O Fires Up Overall System Performance." (Interesting quote from the article: "I2O is more than just Intel, Wind River, and a few of their buddies getting together to define another closed system." There they go again, Wind River, Intel and Microsoft, no doubt one of the buddies, chumming around and deciding how the world needs to use computers. What a threesome!)
Once the servers and the network backbone are I2O compatible, the assault on the PC and other devices can begin in earnest. This assault is probably about a year away, but may take more of the form that would please you. Through regular advertising, the high-end PC user should begin to demand I2O inside, just like many require MMX today even without software that utilizes the extensions.
The assault on NCs and Embedded Internet Devices in general will be behind the scenes, more like what we have seen for servers. Nobody cares if I2O is inside an EID, or your printer. The only reason it is there is to minimize time to market by simplifying driver development and testing, enhance network device manageability, etc. Not a bragging point for selling to the public.
These are the reasons why the I2O chip volume ramps fast but not explosively from the low millions next year.
Allen |
