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Looks like the end of the road for mac pro
- Thread starter pat500000
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Yeah. And DEC had their pizza-box PCs, and the "VAXMate," (but I can't remember exactly what the VAXMate was, but I'm pretty sure it was x86 based but it might have been MIPS based) and before that, the Rainbow, which ran both CP/M and MS-DOS.
They were all trying for that end-to-end integration, as you say, IowaLynn.
What interests me is that Apple seems in its own way to be trying for an end-to-end solution, with the low end being iOS and iOS devices, and the high end I suppose effectively being some cloud-based solution rather than big iron in a machine room. Because I do think that one crucial difference is that the old high end was based on multi-user systems with resource sharing among them (to put it crudely; we could have a workgroup with resources all on the same machine). Cloud computing amuses me (and I use it, so this isn't a complaint) because in so many ways it resembles the old mainframe/terminal paradigm. Certainly not in all ways!
They were all trying for that end-to-end integration, as you say, IowaLynn.
What interests me is that Apple seems in its own way to be trying for an end-to-end solution, with the low end being iOS and iOS devices, and the high end I suppose effectively being some cloud-based solution rather than big iron in a machine room. Because I do think that one crucial difference is that the old high end was based on multi-user systems with resource sharing among them (to put it crudely; we could have a workgroup with resources all on the same machine). Cloud computing amuses me (and I use it, so this isn't a complaint) because in so many ways it resembles the old mainframe/terminal paradigm. Certainly not in all ways!
For me as a professional print designer and photographer the lack of wide gamut displays is what kept me on a nMP. Yes the Retina is really nice but the iMacs have had QC issues for years (yellow/warmer bottom or top half of screens) plus running something that gets to 105c all day in a tight package didn't sit well with me either. I even picked one up to see if I could live with the non-matte/non-aRGB screen and it had the yellowing issue. I gave up and replaced it with a nMP.
I'm probably a dying breed who want an external aRGB display as my main screen but come the next upgrade cycle I may just jump to *gag* windows. That tasted awful.
Seems high, there are a number of 6-core 3.33s for ~ $1000+. Personally I wouldn't look at anything without a dual processor (2009+) as that gives you more upgrade options in the future.
You still haven't said what you are using the machine for, you might get some better advice.
What am I missing? How will moving towards thin clients help profitability for Apple?
Apple makes money selling hardware. If the only thing everyone needed were thin clients, their profitability will take a severe hit. Where's the benefit for Apple? What would drive them to try and push this?
Apple makes money selling hardware. If the only thing everyone needed were thin clients, their profitability will take a severe hit. Where's the benefit for Apple? What would drive them to try and push this?
Thin workstation clients make revenue through several possible streams - client side virtualisation software, servers, or server time, or subscriptions, or any combination of the above. Nvidia GRID is already gaining a foothold in the creative market with these solutions. But moving to thin clients is not an overnight process for the computer industry as will take a decade for all reasons mentioned before. In this transition period it would be wise for Apple to get as many people using OSX software and Apple services so they may retain them as customers at a later time.
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Agreed. International Business Machine, they made cash registers and electric typewriters, then computers and were Apple's main hardware competition in the early days of personal computers. But, that is ancient history I'm afraid.
Put a couple of Nvidia cards in there, add a racing stripe, and I think Apple could make a lot of money on the mMP. Perhaps they do not agree.
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None of these are core competencies of Apple. Apple sells hardware and makes a ton of money doing so. Abandoning that to they and sell these services would cause a share holder uprise and probably executives to lose their jobs. Look at what happened to Leo Apotheker when he tried to get rid of their PC business when he was CEO of HP and their PC business wasn't even making money. Imagine Apple trying this with a highly profitable business.
IBM stands for "International Business Machines", they were making hardware before what we currently call "Computers" and operating systems existed.
You don't have to abandon selling computers to embrace on demand computing and virtualisation. Certainly not for the next decade or so. But the whole industry is moving towards subscription services and seeing the OS as just a background service. There's no longer any money to be made by selling OS upgrades. By the time thin clients can be a practical reality for most users the world will be a different place, more connected, more fairer, more secure, and more environmentally conscious. Shareholders will be properly educated about that by then because they will be part of the change. They will see the gradual shift towards monetising software subscriptions, monetising on demand computer power, and the global benefits of lowering each user's carbon footprint. We may even see carbon credits being monetised in a way that benefits the average person. We will look back at the cMP and other high carbon footprint technologies as an inefficient period that we had to go through. I also think many of the established players in banking will be replaced by the biggest tech companies.
Let's agree to disagree on the thin client debate and get back to the main topic...
If, even by your estimation, "certainly not for the next decade or so", how does any of this affect the Mac Pro line today???
Funny you should mention the mini. Perhaps Apple is neglecting the MP because all of their resources are focused on the new Mac Mini.
I think there will be one more Mac Pro line up and then OSX will be released for everyone after that. iOS will be installed on some of the Apple desktop and notebook computers at the low end.
Again, I can't see this happening. Although, Mac sales represents a small portion of Apple's profits, it still generates billions in profit every year. This is only "small" when compared to the insane iPhone profits. Any PC maker would get down on their knees and thank their maker for Mac margins and profits. Giving away OS X would be abandoning these billions for no good, logical reason.
Even if Tim Cook took twice as much hallucinogens as Steve ever did all in one shot, he would not do this.
iOS is fine and good but for many (most?) it's no replacement for a full desktop OS.
Even if Tim Cook took twice as much hallucinogens as Steve ever did all in one shot, he would not do this.
iOS is fine and good but for many (most?) it's no replacement for a full desktop OS.
PC's were called IBM Clones. Because IBM made so many computers, they sold the laptop part to Lenovo though, IBM made excellent laptops as they were very reliable, ugly but reliable.
Anyway, it would be a shame if the Mac Pro went, I mean from someone like myself I like to be able to fix things, but a superglued iMac doesn't really offer that. A MacBook Pro currently still does, for now. But one day they'll seal the bottom in so you can't take it apart without getting the heatgun out.
I do think the Mac Pro is a Pro machine, but Apple should upgrade it with bigger storage if nothing else.
I just feel as they spent so much on R&D on the new model and have it built in America then it isn't going yet. But alas they don't promote it anymore and they have dropped some of their Pro programmes now.
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This thread is a lot of anxiety over nothing. Apple isn't going to kill the nMP. The reason many video editors don't own one is due to the fact that many professional editors don't use FCPX. If you don't, then switching to PC for Premiere or sticking with legacy MP for FCP7 or Adobe makes sense. I'm sure the nMP is a blip on Apple's sheet as far as profits are concerned, but killing it would also mean there is no longer a flagship machine to run their professional applications. I find that unlikely. Infrequent updates? Check. Incredibly unimportant to their bottom line? Check. That doesn't mean it's on the verge o being discontinued, especially just because it's been left out of a promotional photograph. It's a niche product for Apple. I bet they sell very few of them at Apple stores, for example.
EDITED TO ADD: I suppose it's possible they could kill it, but that would likely coincide with the release of a super iMac or something with comparable features. And the evidence in this thread does nothing to make me believe that they'll kill it anytime soon. My point is that they'll always have something that runs their pro apps better than everything else for as long as they have pro apps. Given the connectivity changes they've already made with the nMP, switching to a super iMac wouldn't be nearly as difficult as the switch from the old Mac Pro to the new one.
EDITED TO ADD: I suppose it's possible they could kill it, but that would likely coincide with the release of a super iMac or something with comparable features. And the evidence in this thread does nothing to make me believe that they'll kill it anytime soon. My point is that they'll always have something that runs their pro apps better than everything else for as long as they have pro apps. Given the connectivity changes they've already made with the nMP, switching to a super iMac wouldn't be nearly as difficult as the switch from the old Mac Pro to the new one.
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My local Apple Store does not have one on display. In its place there is a....
Laser printer.
Laser printer.
The point was that the industry is moving in that direction, and Apple's lack of focus on the MP is a reflection of that. It should stick around for a while longer, but it really wouldn't be surprising to see updates far between.
The workstation market is shrinking relative to the overall market... it's just not worth Apple's efforts to invest time and talent in it at the same level as they do for other Macs (as far as they're concerned... personally I think it would be worth their time). Apple has examined the market and the trend to smaller and more portable devices, and found that the vast, vast, vast majority of usage is covered by their current product line. Even for "pros". ;-)
So, for the millionth time, the cMP loyalists are a tiny minority of the overall market... whether we like it or not, the overall market is going to ultimately dictate the direction the industry moves in. Apple wants to stay ahead of the curve on that.
That's the scary part for Apple - they are trying to maintain a corporate culture of staying ahead of the curve, staying flexible, staying innovative - the kind of culture that has kept 15 years of explosive growth for the company. That's one of the reasons simply creating more project teams to work on more projects is a risky proposition. Just look how stagnant most of their PC contemporaries have become suffocating under the weight of layers of management, departmental infighting, and lack of vision (e.g. IBM, Microsoft, HP, Dell, etc.), not to mention all the former giants that no longer exist.
And in fact, all those big hardware companies are following IBM's lead and transitioning to service companies. That doesn't mean they're going to stop selling hardware any time soon, but services is where the profits are... commodity hardware is a tough business to make profits.
Apple will still try to keep the value of tying their hardware to their services - they can make profit on both by providing a unique all-in-one solution.
I can see thin client growth in a corporate environment, but that's something that Apple has largely conceded. They discontinued their Xserve line quite a few years ago.
For individual users and creative markets, I don't see how thin clients will benefit their workflow. Look at the Chromebooks, which in essence is nothing more than a thin client. How much of a foothold have they gotten?
There was never an argument on whether or not the Mac Pros were a low volume product. We've known this for years. That doesn't mean that those who relied on it need them any less today.
I argue that all those companies, IBM, HP, Dell, etc. had/has failing PC businesses because they sold commoditized products where little differentiated any of them other than price. This lead to price wars where no one could win. This is where Apple with their own proprietary OS benefits them in profit margins. We see it all happening again in the smartphone industry. How many smartphone makers besides Apple is truly profitable?
All those guys transitioned to services because there was no other way for them to make money from PCs. What would you have IBM do? Sell gourmet coffee? Of all those companies you named, only Microsoft benefitted from the commoditization of PCs.
Apple has a pretty poor history with services. Look at .Mac, MobileMe, and iCloud. The value in their hardware is the software that they run. Apple no longer charging for OS X updates, giving away iWork for free, etc are all efforts to improve on this.
For individual users and creative markets, I don't see how thin clients will benefit their workflow. Look at the Chromebooks, which in essence is nothing more than a thin client. How much of a foothold have they gotten?
There was never an argument on whether or not the Mac Pros were a low volume product. We've known this for years. That doesn't mean that those who relied on it need them any less today.
I argue that all those companies, IBM, HP, Dell, etc. had/has failing PC businesses because they sold commoditized products where little differentiated any of them other than price. This lead to price wars where no one could win. This is where Apple with their own proprietary OS benefits them in profit margins. We see it all happening again in the smartphone industry. How many smartphone makers besides Apple is truly profitable?
All those guys transitioned to services because there was no other way for them to make money from PCs. What would you have IBM do? Sell gourmet coffee? Of all those companies you named, only Microsoft benefitted from the commoditization of PCs.
Apple has a pretty poor history with services. Look at .Mac, MobileMe, and iCloud. The value in their hardware is the software that they run. Apple no longer charging for OS X updates, giving away iWork for free, etc are all efforts to improve on this.
Who knows. The way Apple trend is (meaning heavily refreshing iMac and Macbook/pro/air yearly..or close to yearly), they really don't need a flagship because they are merely focusing on profit. Apple had been treating iMac as if it was their new born baby...with all that attention and leaving the grown up child, mac pro, out of the picture...probably hiding in the basement. I don't know...basing on the trend...it's likely. If apple decides to update their newer (future) OS X which requires 2015 or up model...well then...that's that, right?
Since I'm spending about $8K/month on AWS - I find that doing "bursts" of computing in the cloud is cost-effective, but if I need a few hundred cores 24x7 for months on end ProLiant is the way to go.
Of course, ProLiants are CapEx and AWS is OpEx - so financial shenanigans do play a consideration.
Funny: I do print/digital production and I've slowly become agnostic about screen quality. So long as it's calibrated to be near where it should then I know that whatever I see onscreen is only a guess until I run a proof. Until then all I'm really paying attention to are the numbers in Photoshop's info palette.
You can still use any Apple product. Buy an external monitor to use as your main screen, and put your palettes and whatever else on the Apple monitor. It's what most of our designers do.
As to the larger question of the future of the Mac Pro, if Apple does decide to kill it, I think it's simply a numbers game. Desktops are a steadily shrinking, minority percentage of overall computers sales. Within that, high-end desktops are a vanishingly small part of that pie. Given that over 75% of Apple's computer sales are laptops, I'd imagine that iMac sales are high single digits at best, and Mac Pro sales may be dismally low. A MacBook Pro will do just about anything you need in terms of design or production—Apple's historical niche—and they only really fall down when you're working on big Photoshop files which really benefit from a discrete GPU. So long as you're not opening .psb files, the Mac Mini is surprisingly capable.
Simply put, Apple doesn't do niche products any more, and big, powerful desktops are now a niche product. And, if Apple decides they need to abandon a niche in which they've long been the preferred machine, I have no doubt they'll do it.
Apple's laptop sales generate billions every year. Their desktop sales are a steadily shrinking part of that profit picture.