Oliver Peter’s Thoughts On The New Mac Pro

[Walter Soyka]

[Craig Seeman] “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.”

Maybe you are thinking of workstations only in terms of video?

I think there will always be a market for demanding local computing. I’d agree the size of that market may decline. That’s why I’m suggesting we’ve just passed the bottom point of the V. As workstations become more niche, they will necessarily increase in price.

[Craig Seeman] “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.”

I don’t think it’s an attempt to “expand the niche.” I think they’re getting out of the workstation niche and defining a new one.

Apple does not call the new Mac Pro a workstation. They call it a pro computer, and I think that’s as good as taxonomy as any. It’s more than you’ll get with an iMac, but less than you’ll get with big HP.

I think it’ll be a great computer for editorial, full stop. I think it will not be the absolute best in performance (by design), and I think it will be somewhat lackluster for other traditional workstation markets Apple may not care to play in, like 3D.

The new Mac Pro can be a good play for Apple without existing workstations being bad plays for their respective manufacturers. It’s all about selling customers things they need, and there is still a robust need for workstation-class machines.

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

[Walter Soyka]

Selective quotation? From the very next paragraph:

“The good news? Simply put, the market didn’t go down, at least not materially so. “Both the sequential and year-over-year (YoY) numbers were negative, but they need to be viewed in a cyclical context,” explains JPR Senior Analyst and JPR Workstation Report author Alex Herrera. “Considering that the Q4-to-Q1 decline is often larger than what this past quarter saw, the more modest drop is a little heartening. Furthermore, we’re still suspicious that the quarter a year prior was unjustifiably hot, putting less weight on the YoY number as well. As such, with results both mixed and modest in magnitude, we’re inclined to call the quarter simply flat.”

JPR is a great source and if you read through previous reports, you’ll see that the market as been largely flat or slightly up for some time.

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

[Marcus Moore]

The professional market has been ceding ground to “consumer” machines for some time. As things like iMacs have become more and more powerful over the last 10 year, they just keep scooping up more pros in different disciplines who’s need can now more than adequately be met by those devices.

I dare say; illustration, desktop publishing, programming, web design… are all being more than “adequately” served by laptops and desktops.

Even the lower to middle rungs of the A/V ladder can now be accomplished on these machines, and I think (on the video side, at least) the top tier keeps out of reach only because the top of the ladder keeping adding rungs, with higher resolutions and frame-rates coming into play.

But I think the top-top end is going to continue to get squeezed tighter and tighter. How powerful will and iMac be 10 years from now? CPU and GPU will be unquestionably faster, and if TB gets to it’s 100GB/s goal, I/O will cease to be an issue.

[Walter Soyka]

[Marcus Moore] “But I think the top-top end is going to continue to get squeezed tighter and tighter. How powerful will and iMac be 10 years from now? CPU and GPU will be unquestionably faster, and if TB gets to it’s 100GB/s goal, I/O will cease to be an issue.”

640KB of RAM was not enough for everybody.

Jim Blinn, computer graphics pioneer and the genius behind environment mapping, bump mapping, and the now-ubiquitous teapot, put it best in what is now called Blinn’s Law: “As technology advances, render time remains constant.”

I think there is an economic truth underpinning Blinn’s Law, so I’ve generalized it a bit. I’m now trying to pass off the line “Expectations rise at the same rate as capabilities” as Soyka’s Law, but it hasn’t really taken — yet… 🙂

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

[Tony West]

[Craig Seeman] “That the ease of relocating a small sized workstation was more important that rack mounting.”

I agree.

A crazy true story that happened to me.

A friend’s mother passed and he asked me to make a tribute video to her memory the afternoon of the service. I have always been close to the family and was honored to make the video.

I went home and went to town on it. Time got away from me and before I knew it I only had a short time to burn it to a dvd. I realized if I burned it I would be late to the service.
So………I picked up my whole mac pro and 27in tossed it in my car and drove there.

The look on the face of the funnel home employees was priceless as I carried in this large machine.

The family loved the video and it lightened the mood as they watch me set it all up.

I would have loved to have looked a little less crazy than I did that day by caring in that tube : )

Don’t take the post it too seriously folks, just a crazy true story I wanted to share.

[Craig Seeman]

[Walter Soyka] “Maybe you are thinking of workstations only in terms of video?”

Or maybe Apple is. Consider how they presented the Tube and in what context was it demoed.
They focused on creatives when they presented it and it was Foundary that did the “lunch break” (or whatever they called it) demo.

[Walter Soyka] “I don’t think it’s an attempt to “expand the niche.” I think they’re getting out of the workstation niche and defining a new one.”

Maybe semantics but I’m thinking of whatever you want to call it that needs Xeon CPU and higher end dual GPU use. Yes it may be a new niche if you’re defining a workstation based on internal vs external expansion. Also, given the Tube’s size it might be decided not a “station” as it seems designed to be small enough to move it to a new location as needed (not stationary, work cubicle based).

[Walter Soyka] “there is still a robust need for workstation-class machines.”

If by that you mean two CPUs and more than two GPUs, there’s going to be an ongoing need. I suspect it’s a slow growth area and the computers being sold have long life cycles, neither of which fits Apple’s current business model.

Stating the obvious but Apple doesn’t play (or need to play) in every market niche. They seem to look for growth.

[Craig Seeman]

and along the same vein…

Last year I engineered a live streamed fashion show.
We brought in two MacPros each with a Decklink Quad card. The second MacPro and Decklink was simply for redundancy. The client cursed at the having to transport two MacPros. The second Decklink was because it wouldn’t be practical to pull the card to move from one computer to another in a live situation… even though all the cables would still have to be moved from one to the other.

When the MacPro Tube comes out, the same job would be a Quad card in an expansion chassis with two, much smaller, MacPros. Much easier to transport my guess. Moving from one computer to another would mean simply disengaging a single Thunderbolt cable and moving it to the other computer in an emergency. External storage would be just as easy to move.

I don’t think they’ll be a more portable 12 core Xeon system with video I/O and storage as easy to move from one to another system, as the MacPro Tube.

So Apple could have built a box that would have been a variant on what’s already available (HP Z800 series, etc) but they saw a need in an area where there’s little competition and got their first (or only). So they took the “station” out of workstation by making an externally modular computer that’s portable enough to meet the needs where a laptop would be entirely inadequate.

[Craig Seeman]

[Walter Soyka] “JPR is a great source and if you read through previous reports, you’ll see that the market as been largely flat or slightly up for some time.”

Which points to stagnation or, at best, slow growth. Yes, that’s not horrible but if a computer company is looking to grow, it won’t be with workstations. It’s basically a “maintenance” mode market where much of the sales are replacement.

[John Davidson]

I’m really excited about it. It is, IMHO, a harbinger of things to come. A vastly improved FCPX, a 4k/Retina cinema display, and built in 4k HDMI monitoring all suggest what Oliver does – that Apple is building a true 4K editing machine. Couple this with some other developments like the upcoming 4K options to our Sony FS700, Resolve 10 awesomeness, and it’s no wonder I’m probably getting an ulcer from raw, unfettered impatience.

2 years ago started a painful transition period for all of us, not just with Apple but with all software in general. I’m really hoping that we’re about round the corner and enter a truly beautiful period of production. Software that is robust and does what we want with no workarounds, hardware that is so speedy 3D becomes less of a niche and more of a standard offering, and everything working together to give us more time to make with the pretty pictures.

We’re almost past that point we didn’t want to accept 2 years ago where the previous 32bit world was put to pasture. Everything is finally on the verge of dramatically getting better. The framework for an awesome generation of production is being set on all fronts. It’s an exciting, frustrating time!

John Davidson | President / Creative Director | Magic Feather Inc.

[Rick Lang]

I hope I am not misquoting William Butler Yeats, as I think he said it all: “A man’s reach should exceed his grasp.” We are always looking beyond today to reach ever elusive goals. Tomorrow is one day closer to a target that never rests. And that is the way it should be.

Rick Lang

iMac 27” 2.8GHz i7 16GB