I have a question.
Is Apple prepared to let their pro machine, go through the entire year of 2011, without having their, heavily marketed, Thunderbolt technology?
Thunderbolt on a desktop with slots isn't a necessity. It does however, offer convenience and potentially reduced costs by allowing peripherals to be shared between a laptop and desktop without a bridge device needed in between (i.e. eSATA from the MP to a small box that includes a TB port for connecting to peripheral devices the size of a USB hub or so).
For example, lets say we're talking about video editors that do field work, and edit back in the office. For such cases, recording RAW camera data to a Thunderbolt storage device, such as the
Promise Pegasus via the laptop, then connect the Pegasus to the MP for editing could save time (still a good idea to make a backup before editing though).
In Apple's case however, there's 2 things to consider IMO:
- They've helped develop Thunderbolt
- They like uniformity whenever possible/applicable as they see it (applicable for example = HDMI is only found in the Mini)
So as a result, there's a strong chance there will be a Thunderbolt port on the next MP IMO (just need to get DP data to the TB chip, which is technically possible without "breaking the bank" in terms of production costs).
I know that the Mac Pro is capable of high speed data transfers, however it seems like Apple is promoting Thunderbolt as their, the-future-is-now technology. This makes me wonder, would Apple really let their pro machine go through this?
I'm not sure what you're getting at here...
In terms of why there hasn't been a new model yet?
Or do you mean in terms why they would/wouldn't put Thunderbolt on the next MP?
And what do you suggest they do without... CPUs or a chipset to upgrade to yet?
It's not late until the 15th November! (I.e. Actual launch

)
Unfortunately, Nov. 15th may not include the Xeons (could wait for PCIe 3.0 compliance approval before they ship the DP Xeons, which is important for that particular segment), as the information available is indicating it's actually for the LGA2011 i7's (Xeons were later than the i7 variants of LGA1366 if you recall).
