Phil Hoppes
Forum Replies Created
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While I do wish it success as nothing helps all users overall as good competition, what you see here is a very classic difference in how the two companies approach a problem.
Apple looks at new products and markets and asks the question how best to serve that market or create a new one? What would the device look like? What services are needed?
Microsoft looks at the very same thing and ALWAYS goes to, “How can we make windows solve this problem?” Not what do consumers need, not what is the best solution to the problem but how can we shoehorn in windows as a solution to another market. To Microsoft the world is just nails that need a Windows hammer. IMHO this is not innovation and a large reason why Microsoft has just languished for the last 10 or so years.
…… and to the kickstand …. well for me I got a fever and the only way to fix that is with more Cowbell (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=z0uvVZg4Tw4)
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It’s very simple. You happen to believe what people/corporations say. I happen to believe in what people/corporations do. There is a significant difference. I look at what Apple has done. What they have done is continuously refine and minimize their product line and streamline it for the 80/20 rule. They want that 80% sweet spot of the market. They don’t play in the basement nor do they play in the very top end. The current MacPro in it’s hayday was very far from the top end of a performance workstation that one could either buy or put together. It’s graphic card selection has always been terrible and very very limited. They put in moderate speed HD’s, their optical drives are a joke and they never put in the fastest CPU’s that are available because they hate fan noise. That is a fact not hearsay. Still, they were fine machines. I had one but they have never been what I would consider to be “bleeding edge”.
You mention Smoke and the MacPros in the same sentence. Then why at NAB and every where else you look are all demos for Smoke done on high end iMacs? It’s simple… for 80% to 90% of the Smoke users that is all they need. I run Smoke on a MBP and it runs fine.
Tim Cook mentioned, after much badgering, that they have not abandoned the Pro market. While he really can’t say bubkus without getting thrown in jail about a future product, it does not take a rocket scientist to project that a high end Mac is probably going to look far more like the migration of the old MacBook Pro to the new MacBook Pro than the old tower to some new one. An iMac with a slot perhaps or a uber MacMini as someone else has suggested. That being said, there is still a good chance that all he is taking about is an iMac with a faster i7 cpu inside. Do you seriously believe that damage was not done to the overall perception on MacPro users by the ridiculous “New” they posted on Monday? Do you really think that their current market share is going to RISE with an overpriced, under spec’ed, under performing BS box they are currently peddling and that customers who need a faster machine now are not either going to look at an uber iMac or switch to Windows? Both of those decisions decrease units and justifications for another tower and if anything the loyal Mac fan that opts for an uber iMac simply adds more justification for that type of product vs a stale toaster.
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I was kinda hoping we would get to see Ballmer kick a chair and then run around sweating shouting “Developers” a zillion times…. 😉
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[Richard Herd] “They are segmenting the pro market and increasing their share of it.”
Absolutely, and their “upgrade” last week to the MacPro certainly reinforces this for sure.
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In terms of a “traditional” open platform the new MBP is definitely moving away. Like Henry Ford said, “You can get a car any color you want as long as it is black”. I suspect that a new MacPro, if there even is one at all, is going to be quite similar. The already extreme lack of high end graphics card support already separates them from what I would classify as very high end.
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[Robert Brown] “But a big thing IMO is that Apple lost a huge edge”
$109B in annual revenue last year and you say they’ve lost an edge???? Sorry but I just can’t take these kind of statements. Apple is moving away from the very high end and focusing on what brings them zillions of $$ in revenue every month. If your needs happen to fall into what they deem necessary to build in order to preserve those zillions that is great. Continue to use their products. If your needs don’t overlap what Apple makes in hardware and software then move on to what you need to get your work done to keep your customers happy. To criticize a company’s strategy simply because they have walked away from your specific needs might hold water if you could demonstrate that they’ve completely failed in the market because of such actions. As it is, Apple has broken just about every record and metric one can think of with their current strategy and product offerings. They are the envy of just about every manufacturing and retail outfit combined. I’d say their strategy is spot on working fantastic. I use their products for what works and where it does not, I use windows and Linux PC’s. All work happy together and work just fine.
IMHO
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Because they are not going to make what you think they are making. My money is on a high end iMac or high end MacMini. That actually makes more sense. They will make some pizza box with limited expandability. Maybe… and that is a big one, Maybe an actual video slot and perhaps 1 or 2 sideways PCI slots but I really doubt that. Apple does not want you making 57 verities of their hardware. Their paltry lack of high end video card support is what drove me back to PC’s 18 months ago. I wouldn’t hold your breath on their attitude on this suddenly reversing. Look at their past actions in their largest volume markets and ask yourself what have they done? They’ve taken kinda expandable laptops and locked them into being fat iPads. You really think you are going to get a soup-to-nuts expandable tower version 2 out of a company that is clearly looking to simplify and minimize their product line? I think not.
Is that bad? Well maybe for some. For the lions share of who Apple wants to serve, it will be more than enough. They don’t like bleeding edge. They don’t want bleeding edge. They are not going to make bleeding edge.
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Well Steve Jobs claimed the next version of FCP was going to be “awesome”. And to many it is. But….. it is following Apple’s vision to where they want to participate in the market. I can easily see a very high end iMac that replaces the MacPro but I have a very hard time believing that a traditional PC Box version of the MacPro is in the works anywhere.
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Why?????????????????????
Move on. Get your work done. Quit worrying about it.
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[Craig Seeman] “I can understand that the MacPro would be a major ordeal given Thunderbolt and GPU integration and case redesign but that wouldn’t have the case for iMac with Ivy Bridge and USB3”
No, they get the board design directly from Intel. A bend shim and mutilate and there is no reason, in 6 months time, with a minimal staff of people that they could not spin a new version. What you see is a spin that was done by a marketing dept not an engineering dept.