Oliver Peter’s Thoughts On The New Mac Pro

[Ronny Courtens]

Thanks for the link, Gerry. Of all the articles and opinions I have read about the new MP this may well be the most balanced and mature one. My hat off to Oliver Peters for this.

[Bernard Newnham]

Oliver – “Right or wrong, the Mac Pro that Apple plans to ship represents design and engineering innovation that IBM, Lenovo, Sony, Dell, HP and others are clearly incapable of delivering.”

Or don’t want to, perhaps?

Bernie

[Michael Sanders]

In HP’s case its not incapable, it just has (like Kodak) management that sucks.

HP was one of the innovators with a company ethos based around R&D. Now, it has a management that doesn’t understand R&D and so goes into areas it does understand, like paper and document management.

In Kodaks case, the CEO understands low cost printers so that’s where they concentrated development.

And that’s why Kodak is now in Chapter 11 and how is it getting itself out of Ch 11? By selling off the work of those in R&D.

Michael Sanders
London Based DP/Editor

[Oliver Peters]

Thanks for the comments, folks. And yes, by “incapable”, I did mean management will and vision, not technical/design prowess.

– Oliver

Oliver Peters Post Production Services, LLC
Orlando, FL
http://www.oliverpeters.com

[Bernard Newnham]

[Oliver Peters] “And yes, by “incapable”, I did mean management will and vision, not technical/design prowess.”

I have no idea of the management abilities of all these huge companies, I just wonder if it might be common sense not to build a workaday computer in a shape that doesn’t lend itself to any reasonable kind of flexibility

Bernie

[Craig Seeman]

Personally, given the decline in desktop computer sales, I’d think common sense would dictate “stay the course” would be a fail. Not that they have to be as radical as Apple but any company not doing a rethink is going to continue its decline in that market.

[Walter Soyka]

[Craig Seeman] “Personally, given the decline in desktop computer sales, I’d think common sense would dictate “stay the course” would be a fail. Not that they have to be as radical as Apple but any company not doing a rethink is going to continue its decline in that market.”

I think it’s an error to equate the personal computer market as a whole with the professional workstation market.

Of course, workstations are a niche, and in video, perhaps a niche within a niche.

I expect we’ve just recently passed the bottom of a V-shaped curve describing workstation pricing.

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

[Craig Seeman]

[Walter Soyka] “I think it’s an error to equate the personal computer market as a whole with the professional workstation market.”

I’ve heard workstations aren’t declining with the same severity as general purpose desktop PCs but, I’d have to guess things are slowing there as well since higher end laptops and all in ones can replace them in less demanding situations.

A computer manufacture faced with a shrinking or, at least, stagnant, niche, might want to investigate whether it’s even possible to expand the market. HP made some attempt with a more power all in one with the Z1.

Apple may have made the determination (or gamble depending on how you see it) that:
The ability to move peripherals from laptop to all in one to workstation with external PCIe connectivity (Thunderbolt) would add more value that internal open PCIe slots.
That the ease of relocating a small sized workstation was more important that rack mounting.
That given the importance of GPUs that two would be a standard for any workstation vs those whose needs are satisfied by laptops or all in ones.

Apple is attempting to expand the niche by designing a system that eases the interchange of peripherals with non workstations and provides increased mobility. Of course we have no idea if it will sell any better than a box MacPro or any other workstation but it’s probably a more aggressive attempt to expand the niche than any other workstation maker.

[Craig Seeman]

This might be typical of where the workstation market is at the moment.

Workstation market not feeling the same pain as the broader PC market
https://jonpeddie.com/press-releases/details/workstation-market-not-feeling-the-same-pain-as-the-broader-pc-market/

but

The leading workstation and professional graphics analyst firm reported that the industry shipped approximately 890.5 thousand workstations worldwide, a figure 4.7% lower than the fourth quarter of 2012 and 3.0% lower than the same quarter a year prior. The disappointment is obvious, as no business is happy with a market showing no growth.

[Brett Sherman]

[Walter Soyka] “I expect we’ve just recently passed the bottom of a V-shaped curve describing workstation pricing.”

I think not only have we passed the bottom of the V for pricing, but also the apex of the V for choice. I’d expect fewer and fewer options going forward.