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Why Apple should let HP build its workstations
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[Andrew Richards] “Apple will never license OS X. It doesn’t make any sense for them to license it. What’s in it for Apple?”
How about investing 101: Diversify!
Apple should not put all it’s eggs in the consumer space and rely solely on the “mob mentality” which can turn on a dime.
Apple stayed afloat serving the pro user and, given their wealth, wouldn’t put much of a dent in there current “fight to the death with google war chest” to continue serving them.
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[John Heagy] “Apple should not put all it’s eggs in the consumer space and rely solely on the “mob mentality” which can turn on a dime.
Apple stayed afloat serving the pro user and, given their wealth, wouldn’t put much of a dent in there current “fight to the death with google war chest” to continue serving them.
“This is an excellent argument in favor of Apple continuing to produce the Mac Pro. It does not however support the idea that Apple would benefit at all from outsourcing workstations to their biggest rival in the PC space.
Best,
Andy -
[Andrew Richards] “Licensing OS X might be great for Adobe and HP and pro users, but it is all bad for Apple. There is no upside for them. If Apple doesn’t want to play in the workstation market, they will just leave it. What does Apple gain by partnering with HP on workstations? They don’t save dev work on OS X, if anything they add significant hassle. They have the best industrial designers in the world, so it isn’t like they are short on talent. I just can’t see what advantage there is for Apple to hand over the keys to the OS X castle to a competitor, even if it is only for a class of computer Apple isn’t interested in selling anymore.
Apple is in a position where they can be in any market they want to be in. They could decide they want to make original content for iTunes and outspend NBCU’s entire 2010 production spending with 5% of their cash hoard. If Apple wants OS X on a workstation, they’ll make one. If they don’t, they won’t.”
I can’t argue this Andrew, which brings you back to the fact that Apple in some cases is going to force some of their customers to move to another platform quite possibly.
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[Dennis Radeke] “Apple is in a position where they can be in any market they want to be in. They could decide they want to make original content for iTunes and outspend NBCU’s entire 2010 production spending with 5% of their cash hoard. If Apple wants OS X on a workstation, they’ll make one. If they don’t, they won’t.”
I can’t argue this Andrew, which brings you back to the fact that Apple in some cases is going to force some of their customers to move to another platform quite possibly.
“I agree with this as well. Add to this all the iCloud action that clearly aims to dethrone the PC as the center of the digital hub and replace it with thin client services, and I think you’ve got a good look at where Apple is going.
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[Dennis Radeke] “Apple in some cases is going to force some of their customers to move to another platform quite possibly.”
Yes, IF they drop the Mac Pro. They haven’t played their hand yet, or folded for that matter.
Best,
Andy -
Personally I’d think they’d have ceased production on the MacPro by now if they were going to kill it.
What would be the financial point of keeping the supply chain working to sell models that haven’t been updated since 2010. It can’t be selling all that well but they’re keeping the chain open and functional for a reason IMHO. And Yes I still see one MacPro on display in each of the NYC Apple stores I’ve wandered through lately. -
[Andrew Richards] “Yes, IF they drop the Mac Pro. They haven’t played their hand yet, or folded for that matter.”
I really don’t expect much out of Apple even if they do release a new workstation.
For many years now their support for OpenGL and other critical technologies not developed at Apple, has been abysmal. Bad. Junk. Crap. Downright the worst out there. Oh, period. ;o)
No, a new workstation from Apple will not surprise me. But a GOOD new workstation with real expandability supporting current industry leading technologies — now, THAT that would greatly surprise me.
Someone wrote me today and asked if I really believed that Apple would license OSX to HP. I said, “No. I don’t buy that at all — still I can dream.” But what I do believe is that Apple is so strong now that they can afford to let others shore up ancillary niches not supported by their own direct efforts.
This is NOT foreign to Apple’s Corporate Ethos, as some believe. It was but not today.
It is the VERY ESSENCE of their huge success in the iTunes Store. They make money on Other People’s Work. Those songs and TV shows over there at Itunes are not made by Apple. They belong to someone else.
If you look at the Apps phenomenon, at its base is a huge aggregate of developers who make tools and products that Apple sells. Apple does not make it. If Apple had waited to get a whole bunch of things ready themselves, the revolution would have never happened. 5 or 10 tools wouldn’t have done it. But 100s of 1000s and millions will get the job done.
Apple used to build their own machines. Now others do it. Some, direct competitors like Samsung who builds the iPad and yet competes against the Apple iPad with their Android-based Genesis, etc., etc.
I could go on and on with more examples of Apple being more open than many believe but this is already too long.
Apple’s new business model is one of far more inclusion than many have noticed. It is social media in business, practiced by people who get that 20th Century business principles will not work in today’s global market with interconnected peer-to-peer communities through sites and services like Facebook, Twitter, the COW and others.
I have used Apples since about 1982. I have bought plenty and all the iDevices to boot. Bought them for my employees and have them richly saturated throughout our team. I don’t want to move but the day that Apple tells me that they have no interest in my business is the day I will move the company. Not overnight but I will have to move it.
I wonder why a company that works with direct competitors on its Crown Jewels would balk at doing so on products their users need but they do not want to build.
Lastly, in the race to supplant Beta as the standard, VHS won because its creator (Toshiba as I recall, look it up) let others market against them as long as there was the one contracted part which Toshiba alone supplied. Using the same principle, I could see a machine built by HP that served our needs and yet had a card or module that no one else built except Apple. Without it, the machine couldn’t run OSX.
It wouldn’t be hard to do and Apple is already doing it with the iPad and the iPhone. They are even in court fighting their very own supplier, Samsung, so it’s not even like it’s a marriage made in heaven. But I could easily see where Apple would keep many more of us years longer by letting HP build the machines we need.
Best regards,
Ronald Lindeboom
CEO, Creative COW LLC
Publisher, Creative COW Magazine
A 2011 FOLIO: 40 honoree as one of the 40 most influential publishers in America
http://www.creativecow.netCreativity is a process wherein the student and the teacher are located in the same individual.
“Incompetence has never prevented me from plunging in with enthusiasm.” – Woody Allen
“Be who you are and say what you feel because those that matter, don’t mind — and those that mind, don’t matter.” – Dr. Seuss
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Ron – I agree with all your thoughts. I’d like to add a kicker that could help Apple & HP with this.
Have the HP Apple Workstations come pre-loaded with the latest ProApps. FCPX, Motion and Compressor. Everyone of them. Regardless of if the end user is going to run Adobe or Avid on it.
As we all know, if you give an editor a tool, he will use it. Or at least check it out and play with it. The HP workstation becomes a Trojan horse for the ProApps.
Love this thread!!!
Gary
COW members get 5% OFF with Coupon COW5OFF
https://www.videoguys.com 800 323-2325 | We are the video editing and production experts!
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[Ronald Lindeboom] “It wouldn’t be hard to do and Apple is already doing it with the iPad and the iPhone. They are even in court fighting their very own supplier, Samsung, so it’s not even like it’s a marriage made in heaven. But I could easily see where Apple would keep many more of us years longer by letting HP build the machines we need.”
Do you think they aren’t working like crazy to get away from Samsung as a supplier? And do you think they have any interest in stepping on that rake again? Plus, it isn’t even an analogous situation with Samsung. Samsung is huge- they are a semiconductor manufacturer and a consumer electronics marketer. HP is just a marketer. There isn’t an HP chip foundry. HP outsources all their manufacturing same as Apple, so there isn’t some sort of manufacturing advantage.
So let’s forget that Apple has nothing to gain from outsourcing a product they supposedly don’t want to make themselves. Let’s say they do it. What does an https://www1.hp.com/products/quickspecs/13278_na/13278_na.HTML“>HP Z800 running OS X look like?
- It still has the same old OpenGL (this is an OS X problem, not a hardware problem)
- It still has the same limited options for GPUs (if we are assuming EFI instead of BIOS for OS X)
- It still won’t support Blu-Ray drives (not any more than a Mac Pro will today)
- Same number of PCIe slots, same distribution of PCIe lanes as the Mac Pro today
- Same number of HDD bays as the Mac Pro today
- Same number of built-in NICs
- More RAM slots (12 on the Z vs 8 on the Mac Pro)
- One additional external 5.25″ bay vs today’s Mac Pro
That doesn’t look so compelling to me. Honestly, what do you get from a Z800 running OS X that you don’t get from a Mac Pro? 50% more RAM? A third optical drive bay? I don’t get it.
Best,
AndyEdit: Oops, totally misread the number of PCIe slots. That’s 2×16 and 2×8 and 2×4. Those extra two x8 are a big deal.
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[Andrew Richards] “This is an excellent argument in favor of Apple continuing to produce the Mac Pro. It does not however support the idea that Apple would benefit at all from outsourcing workstations to their biggest rival in the PC space.”
Anybody here been in the business long enough to remember the Ampex label on a SONY BVW-75 Betacam SP deck. Never understood that one either.
don walker
texarkana, texasJohn 3:16
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