The Mac Pro needed PCI 3.0 plus USB 3.0 far more than it needed Thunderbolt (which is pretty much DOA for at least 2/3 of all Mac users due to high costs and poor support).
The core issue though is that the 1/3 of all Mac users is still several multiples larger than the Mac Pro PCI-e card market. 14M Macs per year. 33% is about 4.6M. That's likley at least 10x bigger than the Mac Pro market, let alone the add-on card market to of that bigger subset.
The fact that Thunerbolt products that are variants of PCI-e cards are just the primarily just the same board in a new wrapped along with some updated drivers, actually would help support the PCI-e card market to last longer than it would have if limited to just the Mac Pro demand.
The problem with the video ports is 100% Apple's fault. They are the ones that pushed to tie Lightpeak into Mini-Display Port when it was 100% unnecessary to do so.
It actually was necessary. To get placed on all Mac it needed to be a dual use socket. There is limited edge space for sockets on Mac products. You can create an alternative universe where that isn't true, but in this one that is a very real design requirement.
Second, adaption of Thunderbolt would be even slower if there was no "backwards compatible" mode to build inertia off of. USB 3.0 got quick uptake because there was USB 2.0. USB 3.1 will much slower because USB 3.0 is no where near as large ( USB 2.0 had almost a decade to build a deployed user base). Thunderbolt with a clearly proprietary, Intel only, socket would have even more problems than TB has now. There is a reason why Lightpeak was in USB form factor and why USB folks didn't want their port hijacked.
Third, frankly Display Port can also use the help since DVI and HDMI seem to holding their ground. It need another demand push and while Thunderbolt won't help sweep those other two from the field of play it isn't going to hurt places where holding ground gained either.
Getting new standard off the ground is a juggling act. It is an unecessary juggling act if don't really care if has success long term or not.
They should have had a solution to using regular video cards with Thunderbolt (the jury rig option #2 above) from DAY 1.
It is a suboptimal idea for several real reasons.
1. Sharing bandwidth with GPU. High throughput GPU vendors aren't going to be happen with that. There are GPU cards that uses PCI-e switches. Apple works with none of them. It is a solution with overhead which folks want to shovel under the rug in these alternative universe option enumerations.
2. The current realities right now is that GPU subsystems and Thunderbolt are on different generations of PCI-e. GPUs on v3 and Thunderbolt on v2. That is even more exercerbated in mainstream systems where Thunderbolt is typically on the IOHub/Southbridge set of x8 v2 lanes and the GPU is attacked to the CPU's minimal allocation of just x16 v3 lanes. Enough for just a GPU if want to transfer data at high rates.
Xeon E5 have a larger more healthy budget of v3 lanes but they aren't mainstream. There is little to no rational reason to design Thunderbolt's primary design constraints around Xeon E5 class systems.
3. Exactly why would the GPU vendors want to create basic designs which puts more money into Intel's pockets. Intel is already replaced them in terms of deployed GPU units. Clearly on its way to becoming #1 in the Graphics market. So Nvidia and AMD want to speed that up? Not. If think the PC system vendors are a bit skittish about Intel only solutions.... the GPU vendors are in another zipcode.
They dumped the rack mount servers ages ago and so their one and only professional computer is basically a round peg trying to fit into a square hole.
Given they moved away from rack mount servers they haven't particularly been trying to fit into square rack holes. The gratuitous handle height on the current model isn't friendly to horizontal rectangular holes either.
I'm sure a few desktop video startups might like it, but most of the true professionals out there (whether in audio, video or both) NEED special equipment
Large shops seem more likely target. One-man-band shows aren't. Past video ingest into a network storage for a team solution custom video cards for what? Transform? Done. Output to reference monitors... not that huge of a gap.
and whether that's PCI cards or even just basic Firewire, WTF should a professional Mac Pro NEED a freaking adapter to just use Firewire, for example?
For better or worse the "normal" set-up in Apple's mind is likely a Mac Pro paired with an Apple TB docking station/monitor. There is a FW port in that configuration.
But begs the question of whether USB is in the mix or not.
Is there some REASON a *DESKTOP* computer doesn't have room for a dedicated Firewire port to connect professional audio gear?
What pro audio gear company doesn't have new USB 2.0 offerings?
What pro audio gear company couldn't sell more product to more Mac users if enclosed their PCI-e card in a Thunderbolt box. Their "card" would work not just with Mac Pro but with millions more Macs. Why wouldn't they be interested in trying to sell those million more users?
I'm sure they're trying to PUSH manufacturers to make Thunderbolt adapters, but it's not working very well.
It isn't an adapter. There seems to be more Thunderbolt products at NAB this year than last... not really a sign that it is not working well.
Most audio devices are Firewire 400, not even 800 and require an adapter
A FW400 cable with a FW800 shaped socket at the end is no more an adapter as a USB socket A to microUSB cable is.
Frankly the whole stuck in the FW400 ghetto is in what part what killed FW. No need for speed increased and standard dies off on devices tracking higher workloads.
But the fact is, NO ONE is using Thunderbolt,
A non fact. As big as the USB market? No. No one? Also no. Your whole post started off alluding to millions of users.
(not to mention they're SLOWER than PCI 3.0 by a factor of *8*).
Just got through harping on only really need a FW400 speed connection. That's PCI-e v2 x1 territory. Thunderbolt is significantly faster than that. There is hardly anything audo that pushes Thunderbolt except for small corner cases of extremism.
