Thunderboltable (Premium)

On Wednesday, Microsoft will announce several new Surface PCs, none of which will support Thunderbolt 3, if all the rumors and insider accounts are accurate.

I’m at peace with it.

As you may know, I’ve been campaigning for three years to get Microsoft to adopt Thunderbolt 3. Since then, every single PC maker on earth has adopted the technology, and not just in their most premium PCs. But Microsoft, which only makes premium PCs, has ignored this need.

I’m not going to make the same old argument again. You get it. Only Microsoft does not.

What I will do is play devil’s advocate and anticipate the answer that Microsoft will give when it is asked, as it will be, why it continues to ignore the most important PC hardware technology to emerge in this decade.

What it has said in the past---that it simply hasn’t heard the need from its customers---is nonsense. As any creator will tell you, as Steve Jobs so infamously noted, their job is to tell customers what they want, to demonstrate why what they’ve done is better and, in this case, more future proof.

Decoding that customer request thing, it’s clear to me that Microsoft has pushed itself into a corner of its own making. By creating a MacBook-like magnetic power and expansion connector, Microsoft has confined itself to supporting that USB-based “standard” for years to come. Its business customers expect forward compatibility: Their peripherals should work as much as possible when they upgrade to new PCs.

The reason that’s nonsense is that Microsoft could easily implement Thunderbolt 3 in addition to this magnetic Surface connector. Just as it today offers both USB-C and this connector on some (but not all) of its newer PCs.

So here’s the devil’s advocate answer to my complaint: Thunderbolt 3 simply isn’t necessary. Not literally but in about 99 percent of the scenarios in which its customers engage in now and in the near future.

In other words, with just USB-C or with its proprietary Surface Connect slot, Microsoft’s customers can create a one-cable solution for both power and expansion through a docking station that can efficiently and inexpensively drive an external display, a keyboard and mouse, a webcam, USB-based storage, and other peripherals. You could even drive multiple external displays as long as they do not offer 4K resolution or higher.

What Thunderbolt 3 would bring to the table, by comparison, is relatively esoteric: The ability to drive two external 4K panels at an acceptable 60 Hz. The ability to drive an external GPU (eGPU). And … that’s about it.

With Intel incorporating Thunderbolt 3 capabilities into USB4, it’s still possible that future (post-2019) Surface PCs, like Surface Book 3 perhaps, could finally add this functionality. And such a device, which is essentially a portable workstation, could certainly benefit from Thunderbolt 3’s (or USB4’s) additional capabilities. Maybe that’s why that PC is not be...