Working Over the weekend…

[Tonybadea]

Bye Greg!

[Greg Burke]

Just thought it was an interesting job that had to do with Apple’s business choices the last few months.

thought I’d Share.

I wear many hats.
http://www.gregburkepost.com

[Michael Gissing]

Personally, I am interested in the fact that they are also changing hardware, not just software, something that has been on my mind.

[Walter Soyka]

I have no idea why Greg’s post got a -1. He is adding to the conversation here, not detracting from it.

Greg stated that he was hired to help a facility remove 30 Mac Pros and replace them with PCs — in order to run software that would have worked just fine on the Macs they already had.

I’d think that news of a big facility making a big bet against the Mac platform is just as valuable on this debate forum as news of a big studio making a big bet on FCPX.

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]

It does indicate Apple’s problematic situation.
Purchase decisions are often made near the end of the year due to taxes and budget allocations.

FCPX, which I believe is supposed to encourage Mac system purchases, doesn’t.

I suspect we’ll see a MacPro replacement around the time of the major FCPX update.

For a facility, that would mean waiting until some point in Q1 next year and they may end up making the same decision, losing the immediate tax advantage of making large purchases now.

That FCPX, in its current form, does not compel Mac system upgrades and that one doesn’t even know what the next Mac systems will be are two blows to Apple. Even if one assumes the low MacPro sales relative to other Mac computers, there will be a “reverse halo” effect as mobile editors will be choosing Windows laptops to run their Windows NLEs on.

Although I certainly do like FCPX, it certainly is not yet facility worthy and, if one doesn’t like the paradigm, there’s no current compelling reason to stay with Apple when one can replace all the systems and write it off end of year taxes or budget allocations.

I do think Apple will weather the short term loss of sales though.

My own guess is that mass decisions will accelerate one way or another after the next FCPX and MacPro replacement release in Q1 2012.

[Shane Ross]

Any word on what they are going to do with the MacPros? Depending on how new they are, they might fetch a good price…

Shane
Little Frog Post
Read my blog, Little Frog in High Def

[Shane Ross]

[Craig Seeman] “I suspect we’ll see a MacPro replacement around the time of the major FCPX update.”

I’m not so sure. FCX isn’t designed for owners of MacPros. It’s target is iMac, and laptop editors. People who don’t need expansion slots for large RAIDS, IO devices or fibrechannel networking cards.

Shane
Little Frog Post
Read my blog, Little Frog in High Def

[Bob Woodhead]

yeah, I mean, as much as I’d hate to have to disturb the feng shui of my suite, I’m sure I could find room for a tower or 3….

“Constituo, ergo sum”

Bob Woodhead / Atlanta
Quantel-Avid-FCP-3D-AFX-Crayola
Panasonic HPX500/AF100

[Craig Seeman]

[Shane Ross] “I’m not so sure. FCX isn’t designed for owners of MacPros”

I don’t think what will replace the MacPro will be like the MacPro as we know it. It’ll be a step up from the iMac but stripped of much internal expandability but sans built in iMac monitor. Just my guess of course but I do think Apple has “something” in mind that wont be a tower though.

[Jeremy Garchow]

[Shane Ross] “I’m not so sure. FCX isn’t designed for owners of MacPros. It’s target is iMac, and laptop editors. People who don’t need expansion slots for large RAIDS, IO devices or fibrechannel networking cards.
“

The line isn’t that clearly drawn. FCP 10.0.0 had no support, but 10.0.1 brought support to our fibre raid and is clearly defined as needing a fibre channel protocol (although it works on LAN clients, too).

It’s certainly not there yet, but there’s evidence.

I will walk away in shame as everyone disagrees.

Here’s something to do for those of you not on an iOS device: https://www.trevorvanmeter.com/flyguy/