Stop being a fool with comments like that. You do know that Apple is a BUSINESS, right? And how much revenue are they making from the Mac Pro line? Very little, if any.
If about 100K per year at about a $2,999 average selling price ( both conservatively high and low respectively) that is approximately $300M/yr. That is not very little. Only a deeply warped perspective would label that as very little. If most of Apple's Mac Pro customers were bring in $300M/yr this whole thing would be a non issue.
The issue is growth not revenues. A 2009 business that does $300M which became a 2010 business at $300M , etc etc. is a big problem for Apple since they can get a much higher return on investment by putting money into other products that do grow and have comparable profit margins.
- also considering it is the only line of Macs that have no USB3, no Thunderbolt and it doesn't have SATA3 either. It's obviously been left behind.
As if USB 3.0 and Thunderbolt are the critical factors behind the lack of Mac Pro growth or revenues. Comical.
Apple's lack of investment in 2010-2011 says nothing about whether they expect to get better return on investment in 2013-2015 in the Mac Pro space. If they announced that they want to compete in the space, it is extremely likely that there is a reasonable expectation to make an acceptable return in this area.
In order to get a return they have to have something competitive.
Apple may release a totally different product that they intent as their pro product line, but I think that the big, bulky Mac Pro is a thing of the past.
And you are an Apple VP or executive. In charge of Mac Pro product management ? Work for Apple at all? It really doesn't matter how you grab your crotch. That really isn't going to have much direct influence on the next Mac Pro.
The era of big PCI cards is certainly coming to an end -
Chuckle. That's why intel is releasing Xeon Phi cards and the rest of the higher end GPGPU market is doing well and growing?
what is coming to an end is the era of the
small PCI-e cards. Adding relatively pedestrian I/O like USB 2.0 , FW800 , 1GbE, one-two port eSATA functionality, etc. (ExpressCard like stuff. ) A vertical PCI-e card just to add bluetooth .... nonsensical at this point.
Folks keep inventing "modular future" with Thunderbolt when PCI-e is substantially faster and affords much more modularity in a single box. The multiple computer ( where computation is main element being focused on) is growing.
That is what is wrong with the Mac Pro's growth. It is not tracking that.
The trend in the workstation market are that:
1. GPU cards in the mid-upper range are getting hotter with respect to 10 years ago.
2. CPUs are not the sole source of computational power and in order to compete with GPUs can't really go in the completely opposite power reduction direction. ( they are both having to balance performance versus power savings) so much slower power decreases than more mainstream designs. )
Neither of those are indicators of a smaller box that is competitive.
Similarily while needs for 5.25" devices is down the need for 2.5" devices is up. Again probably a net zero space consumption trade-off and not indicative of a smaller box that is competitive.
only problem is that right now there is no successor to it.
It is barely starting. There is still gobs of the software base that is mired in 20 year old, outdated architectural constraints and preconceptions.
I am sure in 10 years there will be, but for the time being desktops are still important for many people.
The Mac Pro was never aimed at many people ( the mainstream). No one needed at Mac Pro to run mainstream apps before and still won't 10 years from now.
