So in one post you're saying how the new Mac Pro cannot be a pro machine because you can't expand its storage, etc internally - and then you go on to say anyone that works locally cannot be a pro and should be fired??! :s
Probably not the best post to try to interpret literally .. it was illustrating in aggregate many of the claims which have been bouncing around for ~2 months (which isn't necessarily an endorsement of any of those claims).
Truth is - times are changing.
But of course.
It's no longer necessary to have a crapload of local power. Heck, I could do my job with a pentium 2 machine if I needed - as long as I can remote into our more powerful server.
Yes, that's a reasonble illustration of one of the Use Cases ... and because that remote server isn't cheap .. nor the fast interconnect to it (probably Fibre Channel) ... nor to data storage (ibid) ... this isn't really a setup that one can expect to find in the Small/Medium Business (SMB) environment because there's not enough employees/work to amortize and justify that level of centralized IT investment.
Anybody who's bitching about the lack of expandability in the mac pro needs to move with the times. You can have a Mac Pro, with 5 or 6 thunderbolt devices, and its footprint will still be smaller than the old one.
Size is merely one metric. Cost is another.
Particularly for the SMB Use Case where the computation horsepower is still going to be localized, the recurring concern with the nMP and its externalization strategy isn't that one can't provision the capability - - it is that said provisioning is significantly more costly. That adversely affects the ROI and overall 'value' of the new hardware, which makes it a harder business decision to swallow.
For but a simple example, given the current state-of-the-shelf prices which is what a business is compelled to apply for contemporary business decisions, the effective "Thunderbot Tax" for taking four internal HDDs and putting them into an external TB cabinet is analogus to the retail difference between 4 x 1TB HDDs (~$300) versus a Promise Pegasus 4 x 1TB R4 peripheral (~$960).
Granted, we can choose to say that an extra $650 is insignificant to our overall business scheme and priorities, but that usually is again centric to larger businesses and not to SMBs and especially not to one man shops where that $650 expense is literally taken straight out of his paycheck.
The overarching implications of all of this is that it appears that Apple has focused the nMP for larger business enterprises and to the detriment of the SMB and one man operations (which includes 'Prosumers').
And given that Macs in the Enterprise has been a recurring and chronic weakness in Apple's corporate structure and priorities for the past 20+ years, this move is either a very interesting 'tell' for their future intentions or potentially a very grave strategic error. Time will tell.
-hh
