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More rumors to scoff at.
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[Phil Hoppes] “If you have a product line that is in a declining market (High end desktop PC’s) that is also returning less profit than it should, a prudent business manager will look at that and say is there another use for those resources”
[Phil Hoppes] “I don’t think it is a question of IF Mac Pros will die, simply a matter of WHEN.”The new box won’t be a MacPro and it will reach a wider market. High end as far as power but not a “desktop” as we know it. You could look at any number of markets Apple entered and changed. Tablet and netbook markets were considered “non starter” markets by many and look at iPad and MacBookAir.
iMac sales aren’t declining for example. I assume MacMinis are still serving a purpose otherwise Apple would kill those as well. The new box will be more versatile in form. It will be less expandable internally (as iMac and Mini).
Apple doesn’t simply “enter or exit” markets. They asses and design. There’s a need for powerful computers. What’s declining is the desktop workstation form. It’ll be different and a lot of the “traditionalists” will scoff at it. It’ll probably spur the growth of Thunderbolt products since PCIe will be limited to the GPU and maybe one additional IMHO.
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[Walter Soyka] “I don’t mean to split hairs”
It’s OK, we are getting very good at it. 🙂
[Walter Soyka] “,but that’s not design; that’s aesthetics.”
It’s both. It design aesthetics. Apple wraps function in form, it is their ethos. My point is that the MacPro is a well designed machine that looks good. Sure, Apple could design something that “functions” better, but doesn’t look as nice. Since the dawn of the blueberry line of iMacs, that’s not what Apple does, at all. Apple has never designed computers to function like the Z800. Their top of the line computers they HAVE designed are well designed, but not the most powerful computers as the design aesthetics dictate a bit of that. The sliding processor/RAM trays are a really nice design. It would be nice if you could simply swap those trays out from Apple, and not necessarily from a third party company like OWC.
If you flipped the motherboard so it’s horizontal instead of vertical, those processor trays would have to function very differently. Knowing Apple, they would want rack manufactures to design vertical rack trays instead of horizontal.
Jeremy
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[Andrew Richards] “They didn’t kill it because it was rack-able, they killed it because it didn’t sell enough units to justify continuing. If Jony Ive can stomach making an iMac hang on a wall, he should be able to tolerate a Mac Pro neatly suspended in a rack.”
I understand. I think the VESA mount fits in to Apple’s ethos. Less is more. A hanging computer looks much better than a rack case.
I’m not saying they killed it because it was rackable, but they did kill it. My thoughts are that they wouldn’t go back to a rackable kit as they got out of that game.
Just from a tea leaf perspective, the XServe is kind of what you and Craig are proposing. “Just add” thunderbolt, and a few higher speed PCIe ports, and away you go. As I said, I’d like to be wrong.
Jeremy
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[Phil Hoppes] “I don’t think it is a question of IF Mac Pros will die, simply a matter of WHEN. Their may be one more spin left in there but it’s future is most certainly on the bubble.”
You could expand that out to all desktop PCs. Look at what HP did earlier this year, they were talking about getting out of the consumer hardware game. Here’s just one of many articles.
https://money.cnn.com/2011/08/18/technology/hp_pc_spinoff/index.htm
and a “reversal”: https://www.cbsnews.com/8301-205_162-20126667/hp-flip-flop-company-keeping-pc-business/
There are no concrete answers in here, but it is clear, every big company is taking a good look around and asking, what’s next?
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I never said iMac sales are declining, in fact Apple has shown amazing resilience in defying the current market trends and iMac desktop sales enjoy are enjoying a very brisk increase in sales and total market share.
High end PC graphic workstations, ala MacPro, however are declining as main stream (iMac’s and PC equivalents) continue to increase in performance and decrease in cost.
Hey, I’m an original Mac FanBoy and I continually recommend iMacs to family and friends. Apple machines, sans MacPros, are a very good value. I’ve continually shown people that if you compare a Dell, HP and Mac, spec for spec and as equivalent configurations as you can the cost difference is usually nill. You can get more configurations from HP and Dell but within the same specs, the point has really become moot.
On MacPros, Apple is simply a rip off. I just installed a 2xXenon 2.4Gz Hex Core 24GbRam, 1Gb disk server on my farm from Asus. Cost me a whopping $2600. I just priced it at over 6K from Apple. Thats crazy. I like Apple but I don’t like them that much. They don’t really support nVidia Quadra, which I need for all the other software I use, and their overall high end graphic card driver support is abysmal on the cards they do support.
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[Jeremy Garchow] “Just from a tea leaf perspective, the XServe is kind of what you and Craig are proposing. “Just add” thunderbolt, and a few higher speed PCIe ports, and away you go. As I said, I’d like to be wrong.”
Not really. The Xserve was 1U with hot swap HDDs and PSUs, forcing them to get very sophisticated inside and forcing it to be more than 30″ deep. I want a 3/4 thick Mac Pro (I guess that is more like 3U) with detachable handles. That’s a considerably smaller leap. I don’t even care if they don’t sell their own rack rails.
Best,
Andy -
[Jeremy Garchow] “It’s both. It design aesthetics. Apple wraps function in form, it is their ethos. My point is that the MacPro is a well designed machine that looks good.”
I agree with you that good design is both aesthetically pleasing and functional. I am suggesting that the Mac Pro does not show good design, because though it may be aesthetically pleasing, it is not as functional as it should be. Apple sacrificed the ability to rack mount the machine (a reasonable thing that professionals would want to do with their workstations) for an inch and a half of looks-good height.
[Jeremy Garchow] “Since the dawn of the blueberry line of iMacs, that’s not what Apple does, at all. Apple has never designed computers to function like the Z800.”
We’re not talking about Bondi blue iMacs — we’re talking about Apple’s professional line of computers, sold for things like video, audio, and research work. A lot of Mac Pro core customers are likely to rackmount their equipment. This is not an esoteric or expensive feature request. The computer just needs to be an inch and a half shorter to sit sideways on a rack shelf.
[Jeremy Garchow] “If you flipped the motherboard so it’s horizontal instead of vertical, those processor trays would have to function very differently. Knowing Apple, they would want rack manufactures to design vertical rack trays instead of horizontal.”
I love my Macs. They offer a simple, rich, human-centric experience, but still a reasonable amount of power under the hood (both on the hardware and the OS).
Other the other hand, Apple chooses not to pay attention to industry standards (like rack dimensions), and then we have to jump through hoops to integrate them.
These two ideas put together: Apple products are usable by professionals, but not designed for professionals.
Walter Soyka
Principal & Designer at Keen Live
Motion Graphics, Widescreen Events, Presentation Design, and Consulting
RenderBreak Blog – What I’m thinking when my workstation’s thinking
Creative Cow Forum Host: Live & Stage Events -
Sweet! Then when the Mac Pro comes out I sell the iMac, and buy the Pro. Works for me. Creative Cow readers buy me a Mac Pro, and I write off the iMac this year. This is a deal.
AND the general Mac community benefits from Apple releasing a new Mac Pro. It’s a win/win for everybody.
How do we get this going?
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I think Apple prices at least in part reflect that they can’t leverage buy at low prices. Think of how limited MacPro sales are compared to Windows boxes. This is why I think Apple is going to do a major redesign. They have to attempt something they can sell at higher volume with over all lower cost to bring down both their component and manufacture costs.
There are rumors about Mac and nVidia but nothing mentioning the MacPro. An interesting thing about the rumor articles about new AMD card support is that it mentions that Apple has supported cards they don’t sell “officially.”
Apple business goal isn’t necessarily to match pricing on competitor’s boxes. If they can’t make money following their business model, they just wont do it. Apple will have to come up with a compelling box. It may not be the “fastest” because that alone isn’t their formula for best form/function/utility.
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[Craig Seeman] “Apple business goal isn’t necessarily to match pricing on competitor’s boxes. If they can’t make money following their business model, they just wont do it. Apple will have to come up with a compelling box. It may not be the “fastest” because that alone isn’t their formula for best form/function/utility.”
Exactly my previous point. 1) There boxes in the high end market they are attempting to serve are WAY out of line. 2) At what point to you quit beating a dead horse and go play in a market that gives much better ROI?
I’ve obviously switched my workstations and servers to Windows. I had to for reasons too numerous to mention. I love Macs and OSX but in the end I have to get my work done and not go broke doing it and I just can’t sit around and “wait” to see what Apple is up to.
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