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Working Over the weekend…
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[Andrew Richards] “There are relatively frequent minor revs to iMacs and MacBooks (roughly twice a year)”
You mean like little processor speed bumps?
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Touché.
Best,
Andy -
[Walter Soyka] “I don’t disagree with you, Jeremy. Maybe I’m just more impatient. I needed to see some signs from Apple that they were still really committed to this market.”
But Walter, if you’d been paying more attention to Bill D., you’d know that X is the new SeaBiscuit of NLEs.
Randy Ubillos and his cohorts have intentionally held X back in the pack so it can stumble along, but then make a dramatic comeback down the stretch, just in the nick of time, right as the last of our clients is heading toward the door.
David Roth Weiss
Director/Editor/Colorist
David Weiss Productions, Inc.
Los Angeles
https://www.drwfilms.comDon’t miss my new Creative Cow Podcast: Bringing “The Whale” to the Big Screen:
https://library.creativecow.net/weiss_roth_david/Podcast-Series-2-MikeParfitandSuzanneChisholm/1POST-PRODUCTION WITHOUT THE USUAL INSANITY ™
Creative COW contributing editor and a forum host of the Business & Marketing and Apple Final Cut Pro forums.
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[Andrew Richards] “Touché.”
No, I was really asking. 🙂 I promise. I was wondering if I was missing something. It’s pretty much just speed bumps, and maybe a GPU update? I can’t remember. There’s also some more movement in that sector. The jump from Core Duo, to Core 2 Duo, to quad core. But maybe I am missing something crucial!
Jeremy
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[Scott Cumbo] “you can’t compare apple and avid. 2 totally different types of companies. Avid has always and continues to serve the pro/semi pro video and audio market.”
Have you been following Avid financials? They been in the red for at least 5 years. After the “big” switch from FCP to Avid deals, they laid off around 200 more people and continue to lose money. Avid makes most of its money selling hardware and apparently the “Pro” market isn’t buying enough to keep them profitable and this has been for 5 years.
Yes it’s VERY EASY to compare a company in which a “good” financial years means they don’t lose as much money as they previously have vs another company that sells hardware and is growing.
Basically the niche market Avid serves using their current business model is NOT VIABLE. They are a company struggling to come up with a new business model. They have a customer base that complains about expensive hardware upgrades.
[Scott Cumbo] “Avid will always fight for survival based on the very small nature of their clients.”
CMX anybody? Avid hasn’t seen black in years. They’re either going to make some significant changes that’s going to hurt part of its customer base or they’ll eventually fold or be sold.
Have you seen any Avid business reports?
Just a few weeks ago. Lays of 10% of its workforce. Restructuring. The Pro Tools upgrade pricing complaints from customers.
https://www.sonicscoop.com/2011/10/27/avid-announces-restructuring-lays-off-10-of-workforce/Please explain how this is a viable business. Please explain the successful business model they’ve implemented. Please explain how the increased sales in Media Composer will turn around a hardware company that attempts to make its money from selling Unity and Isis.
Maybe they’re hoping that MC sales will lead to an increase in Unity and Isis sales in the facility market that continues to cut overhead to survive this economy.
One might even say that the customer reaction to ProTools upgrade costs are the very same thing Avid was doing at the turn of the century that drove people to Final Cut Pro despite its inadequacies.
Avid were financially successful serving their market that would be a different (very different) story but that’s not the business reality.
Survival. Please show me how . . . actually show Avid how because what they’re doing seems to be slowing their demise at best. They’ve executed no turnaround formula. We’ll have to see how the “restructuring” goes.
I’m not saying that Avid will fold but if (big if) they emerge with a turnaround it’s probably going to hurt some customers in some fashion.
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I don’t think it’s about “importance” per se. It’s the economy of scale. High volume sales mean high volume parts orders generally means lower price per component costs. Apple’s component costs on MacPro may not warrant the cost of new parts orders. Just a guess but I think it’s more about business supply pipeline costs than “importance.” Maybe a better way of putting it as that such changes are not “cost effective.”
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[Jeremy Garchow] “I was wondering if I was missing something. It’s pretty much just speed bumps, and maybe a GPU update? I can’t remember. There’s also some more movement in that sector. The jump from Core Duo, to Core 2 Duo, to quad core. But maybe I am missing something crucial!”
You’re not. Your comment prompted me to look back at the minor bumps, and they do tend to be CPU bumps. Maybe during the Core2Duo era there was a GPU bump or two since it went on so long. But as far as I can tell, architectural leaps in recent Macs like 6G SATA or higher bandwidth RAM is almost always tied to major CPU generational shifts. This is no doubt a byproduct of Intel revving the rest of its components which Apple also makes extensive use of.
The one exception with the Mac Pro is GPUs. No other Mac has a GPU as a user-replacable card, and I have no idea what it is that keeps AMD and NVIDIA from shipping drivers for OS X on more of their products. The work isn’t worth the tiny market share? Do they only do it when Apple subsidizes it? Whatever it is, the GPU gap on Mac Pros vs generic PC towers really sucks. Lots of other card OEMs don’t bother writing OS X drivers either, despite maintaining various Linux and Unix drivers.
Best,
Andy -
[David Roth Weiss] “But Walter, if you’d been paying more attention to Bill D., you’d know that X is the new SeaBiscuit of NLEs. “
Jesus, I feel like I’ve been caught in a “singularity” and transported to either Fox News or MSNBC!
If you read my post carefully, David, you would note that the metaphor was something to spark thought – it was not a position.
I know that’s a difficult distinction, but at least in thoughtful discussions (which are common here) I’d appreciate the freedom to put forth ideas that aren’t easily distilled down to inaccurate sound bites.
Lets leave that for the talk shows. OK?
Thanks.
“Before speaking out ask yourself whether your words are true, whether they are respectful and whether they are needed in our civil discussions.”-Justice O’Connor
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[Jeremy Garchow] “Like what? Release a MacPro with a 6Gb/sec Sata/USB3 connected mac that is going to have even further outdated processors in 6 months?”
I’m arguing for a shorter release cycle precisely to avoid having “further outdated” machines.
Apple chooses to allow the processors to become outdated. Other World Computing will pop the latest Xeons [link] in your Mac Pro processor tray for you — and they apparently just work!
I know you keep saying that Mac Pros aren’t built for speed, but at launch, they really are. They are fast, and they are cheap compared to the competition. The value for a Mac Pro starts out high, then drops off until Intel’s next microarchitecture. Other vendors update more frequently to keep the value curve flatter.
We agree on this: Apple chooses to let the Mac Pros languish after release.
The workstation market isn’t actually dying [link]. Apple could update the Mac Pros more frequently if they wanted to — or if they thought it would be more profitable to. They could raise prices as bit and still be competitive [link].
Apple is a sporadic competitor in this space. It’s weird. They’re only showing half a commitment. If Mac Pros are not built for performance, what are they built for?
Who actually buys Mac Pros? It used to be largely creative pros, researchers, education, and enterprise, right? Apple has explicitly exited the enterprise market, shifted their focus away from education sales, and dramatically slowed if not stopped their advanced computing research. Are we the last market left for Macintosh workstations?
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] “I don’t think it’s about “importance” per se. It’s the economy of scale. High volume sales mean high volume parts orders generally means lower price per component costs. Apple’s component costs on MacPro may not warrant the cost of new parts orders. Just a guess but I think it’s more about business supply pipeline costs than “importance.” Maybe a better way of putting it as that such changes are not “cost effective.””
The two are intertwined- the Mac Pro isn’t as important to Apple because it sells in low volumes, therefore Apple has no incentive to engineer minor revs like an updated SATA bus or higher speed PCIe lanes for slots 3 and 4.
Best,
Andy
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