Why Apple Are In No Hurry To Build A New Mac Pro

[lewdvig]

Axing the pro would force me to hackintosh.

Maybe now is the time for Apple to open up OS X to commodity components. A lot of people would prefer it to Windows 8 IMO. If they could pay $99 for a universal version with broad hardware support I think it would double the Mac install base in a year or two.

 

[bearcatrp]

I would pay 99 bucks to run OSX on my home builds. Apple would make a killing selling OSX, but apple is too hung up on themselves and like to dictate what they think you need. I highly doubt another mac pro will ever come out. To much money being made on iToys. If all the folks sitting around waiting on a new mac pro would pool together and send apple a letter (at the same time) and let apple know how much money they are holding on to waiting for a refresh could give apple some sense of responsibility to reply to each person on the status of a new mac pro. One or two letters wont do jack. You need big numbers to get cook to say something. I pretty much gave up on apple. Got rid of both my mac pro's and imac. Once the mini dies out or I sell it, then I'm done.

 

[fastlanephil]

Axing the pro would force me to hackintosh.

Maybe now is the time for Apple to open up OS X to commodity components. A lot of people would prefer it to Windows 8 IMO. If they could pay $99 for a universal version with broad hardware support I think it would double the Mac install base in a year or two.

Exactly how would that increase Macintosh sales.

 

[Tesselator]

Where's the "Like" button, again?



I adore my 64, my Commodore 64.

Yeah, and the Amigas are pretty nice too! I still have a stack of 4000T Toaster systems.

 

[deconstruct60]

My point exactly: Most people demanding "PCIe expansibility" overlook that Thunderbolt is just a fancy name for external PCIe

Actually it isn't. External PCI-e standard already exists.

http://www.pcisig.com/specifications/pciexpress/pcie_cabling2.0/


Thunderbolt transports two base level protocols Display Port and PCI-e v2.0. There are lots of ramifications because of that. One, is that these "raw" bandwidth quotes like 20Gb/s for a port ( or 40Gb/s for two ports) are off. There is no one protocol that is going to get all that.

I do think that Thunderbolt, under appropriate circumstances, does add up to 20GBit/s full-duplex, i.e. by attaching two daisy-chained RAID boxes (read LaCie Little Big Disks) to one port, each using one of the PCIe x4 links.

You can think it but it won't happen for that storage disk throughput. The full 20Gb/s ( not 20GB/s ) isn't available to the PCI-e. Even Intel talks about Thunderbolt as being a 10Gb/s bus. There are some corner cases where can go a bit over but the premise can always bond the two channels into one is very bad expectation setting.

The bottom line is, as far as I can tell from the outside, that Apple seems to be consolidating the professional workstation and the high-end consumer markets,

Not really. It isn't a consolidation as much as the workstation product is on a completely different refresh cycle. That isn't consolidation. If anything that is a increased decoupling between the two.

The "performance" coverage of the "high end consumer" offering is overlapping that of the entry-midrange workstation of old but that isn't Apple's doing. That is just normal industry "Moore's Law" effect.

however the users who intend to upgrade their machines are left in an unpleasant limbo for an awful long time, which is not only quite un-Apple-y, but also unfair to the users who still believe that there will ever be an update to the Mac Pro.

Frankly workstation folks stopped buying workstations a while back.

" ... . In the carnage that we saw — in late 2008, all of 2009 and into 2010 — workstation replacement cycles slowed dramatically, as wallets snapped shut. In late 2010 and 2011, businesses regained some confidence to spend, and workstation replacements accelerated beyond normal rates to peak in Q3'11, with buyers in effect 'catching up' after holding off during the recession. ... "
http://jonpeddie.com/publications/workstation_report/


Workstation users are squatting longer on hardware now. You can just count the number of thread's of folks proposing that a Mac Pro 2008 isn't obsolete and a viable upgrade for a G4/G5/Mac Pro 2006 user.

It is huge farce to this has been all unilateral action by Apple when there are user trends in the overall workstation market.

They should also inform their (still) loyal customers that the Mac Pro was fun while it lasted, but that it's time to move on, along with solutions to aid the transition.

Apple already invoked Osborne Effect last June. All indications are that they are going to take another stab at the Mac Pro. However, long term insights about the future of the Mac Pro are much more highly dependent upon what users buy as to some unilateral actions by Apple. If there is no growth the Mac Pro will get axed.

That, or give it the cutting-edge upgrade it deserves - without waiting for a slow quarter to push the numbers or whatever elaborate stuff they've conceived in this regard.

Total smoke. There are no indications at all that Apple gooses product introductions to make extremely short term quarterly results. Frankly, the slow quarters have almost already past! Apple delaying to the late Q3 or early Q4 is to push the Mac Pro into the larger quarters.

Where Apple needed a "bump" was in 2013 Q1 and Q2 and it looks like they are on track to introduce practically nothing. ( a not even press release minor Apple TV tweak a couple of months ago. )

The MBA and MBP may slide out to July because of the Haswell IOHub USB 3.0 bug. The sane window for a new Mac Pro is closing smaller as Q2 comes to an end.

It would make sense for some technical reason for Apple to move the Mac Pro to Q1-early Q2 of the calendar year if they were going to return to "approximately yearly" updates. First, it is about 6 months offset from the OS X updates. That actually gives time for them to release a more stable version of the OS ( 10.x.3+ ). Second, that gives at them a window to pick up either new Xeon E5 or GPGPUs. Aiming to precisely synchronize with either one of those is bad. The trend for folks to "buy and squat" is only going to become more entrenched in the workstation space over time. The Xeon E5 update cycles aren't going to speed up. The high end GPGPU card upgrade cycles aren't going to speed up either.

 

[Giuly]

Well, even if it happens to be 2x10GBit/s plus two DisplayPort lanes, it's still fast enough for two SSDs and four hard drives without being the bottleneck. If you want to go all nitpicky on it, sure, somebody defined external PCIe, yet Thunderbolt serves the same purpose as external PCIe x4 combined with DisplayPort.

If you're selling 2010 Mac Pros in 2013, you surely won't see any growth in sales. Call it whatever you want, but people upgrade to iMacs, so your projections aren't looking too good either while the market is shrinking to the point where it might not be viable anymore to release an upgrade at all. If you do that intentionally, I'll call that consolidation.

Whatever the case, every analyst might read Punxsutawney Phil's shadow to determine if and when the thing gets updated. All I can say with certainty is that you can pick up a brand-sparklin' new iMac right now, and that it serves or the majority of the Mac Pro userbase equally well.
If you run scientific simulations that require surreal amounts of RAM and berserk CPU and GPU performance, you might want to look somewhere else, as AMD offers higher performance per watt per dollar for those applications anyways. For everyone else, an iMac is a reasonable upgrade.

 

[goMac]

If you're selling 2010 Mac Pros in 2013, you surely won't see any growth in sales. Call it whatever you want, but people upgrade to iMacs, so your projections aren't looking too good either while the market is shrinking to the point where it might not be viable anymore to release an upgrade at all. If you do that intentionally, I'll call that consolidation.

Yep, this too. Either Apple is totally braindead, or they should be aware that another reason Mac Pro sales are down is because the Mac Pro hasn't been updated.

They're aware of this for other Mac lines as they've stated during financial calls, so I'd be surprised if they weren't aware of this for the Mac Pro.

 

[Simon R.]

They just don't care about the Mac Pro since it is most likely less than a half percent of their business. I don't see how it can be so hard to see, really. If we get a new Mac Pro this year I'll eat my hat (will have to buy one first though), but please let me add ketchup.

 

[sash]

Apple sells as many iPads in a quarter as Macs all year. The iOS things could decline by 50% in sales and still be bigger growth market than the Mac marktet.

Once again, speculations. Apple won't quit its pro segment. It makes no sense.

Check out this article: http://appleinsider.com/articles/13/04/27/editorial-what-will-apple-do-with-the-macintosh/page/1

 

[deconstruct60]

Once again, speculations. Apple won't quit its pro segment. It makes no sense.

Apple will quit any segment that customers stop buying and/or isn't just a commodity (where Apple can't be high differentiation). Buy an Apple printer lately? See any non-docking station Apple monitors?

That isn't speculation. It is Apple's track record of the last decade and a half.

Check out this article:

"... it can instead simply deliver a really high end, attention getting workstation just for bragging rights. ... "

Same narcissistic cruft that is often repeated but makes no business sense what so ever. Nor does it follow with Apple product strategy for the last decade and a half. The current Apple doesn't make product just for bragging rights. As soon as Jobs got back in charge he axed, Steve'd, products like the "20th anniversary Mac". Apple doesn't do products to just brag about. Apple does products that people buy in increasingly larger numbers.

The following video clip isn't a "editorial" by some "If I were Steve this is how I would run Apple". It is actually someone who has been an Apple Exec so pretty much has more weight than these "If I were steve exercises".

http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_detailpage&v=1srU6Z77jfc#t=12s

When he says "votes" he is talking about buy. Not raise a ruckus on rumors forums. Paychecks get paid and the lights stay on when people buy product.

The editorial is just smoke and misdirection.

There is no justification for the Mac Pro there other than "well they just gotta to so they can be braggadocious".

The vast majority of the "profit" being generated by Mac is not the Mac Pro. Sure, Apple isn't going to kill Macs any time soon. But the overall Mac market is not the Mac Pro. The vast majority of these bogus justifications try to wrap themselves in the overall Mac market like wrapping themselves in the "Flag". If anything the vast growth in Mac profits have come during a period of Mac Pro decline. Over the last 3-4 years Apple has put lots of R&D money into other Mac form factors and that has lead to biggest boost in Mac history in profits. That is not making the case for the Mac Pro.

[ Those profits numbers are of other PC vendors are also a bit whacked. I suspect the just took Apple's overall corporate profit margin and applied to revenues. I don't think Apple brings down margins by individual units. Indeed in source article for that charge ".. The only inference I made was with respect to Apple’s margins for the Mac. ..."

First, Apple's sales of OS X are weaved into the Macs numbers. Software has a totally different profit margin norm than PC hardware does. The percentage of cost for low end PCs that Intel+Microsoft takes is rather large. Just removing Microsoft from the picture has a huge impact on profits for those boxes.

Second, the PC vendors profits are also skewed a bit because the services aren't really mixed in. It may pay for HP to practically give away PC's at cost to a customer that is also a HP/EDS service management customer. If that grows HP's outsourcing business that has higher margins it is a reasonable move. But in the subcontext of these graphs on just "hardware" (which it really isn't) sales it not.


]


Hilariously the Appleinsider editorial makes no reference to the following in the underlying Asymco article:

"... Apple is not immune to a gradual erosion of Mac volumes, but they have positioned themselves for growth with devices and content commerce and services. ... "

Growth, people increasing buying things, is an important part of Apple's Mac strategy. What is completely lacking in the "Well, Apple's gotta brag" hand waving is how that fits into that strategy. It doesn't.

More likely Apple sees that there is an possible inflection point with the growth in GPGPU hardware and new software coming along to allow the Mac Pro to tap into new areas of growth. They are making a small bet that if they make something more competitive that the customers will show up. If the customer increasingly buy they'll continue. If they don't then they'll drop it in 1-3 years (depending upon how long it takes to be clear that growth just isn't going to happen and giving software time to make the GPGPU adjustments across the whole Mac product line up. )


If Apple delays until the Fall they will have shrunk the market so small and "starved" those holding out for so long there is almost guaranteed to be year-over-year growth. So it will probably be more than a year. Whether there is a Mac Pro two years out far more depends upon what customers (and 3rd party providers of hardware/software) do rather than anything Apple is going to do in the mean time.

 

[sash]

Apple will quit any segment that customers stop buying

I absolutely agree with this, it's too obvious to discuss. My point is, there still is demand for Mac Pro and for workstations as such. Till this demand dies, they will produce workstations.

 

[fastlanephil]

I'm pretty sure though that the Mac Pro will get a new name as did the Power Mac.

I don't see a Lego type of modular approach but Apple staying with a large single unit that may or may not resemble the current offering but remaining Apple's largest computer.

It's the interior that I suspect will be really different besides the standard updated CPU, GPU and such. Maybe to make it easier to customize and upgrade down the road at least the next ten years or so.

Instead of having to buy a whole new unit you'll be able to swap out parts as upgraded ones become available depending on your current needs.

This approach would make it attractive for the buyer and might save Apple money on R&D for this niche but still important market.

I'm not a hardware engineer so it's just another flying-by-the-seat-of-one's-pants guess.

 

[goMac]

Apple will quit any segment that customers stop buying and/or isn't just a commodity (where Apple can't be high differentiation). Buy an Apple printer lately? See any non-docking station Apple monitors?

That isn't speculation. It is Apple's track record of the last decade and a half.
<snip>

All of which is great, but there is still no evidence the Mac Pro is unprofitable, unlike all the products you listed. (I don't agree with the non-dockable monitors bit being an indication of anything. That's just Apple being Apple.)

Not to mention, out of all of those things, the Mac Pro probably has the lowest R&D costs.

Combine that with 10.9 focusing on "power users", and I think we'll see a new Mac Pro.

 

[deconstruct60]

. My point is, there still is demand for Mac Pro and for workstations as such. Till this demand dies, they will produce workstations.

It is not demand. It is growth. If the workstation market nominally grew at 6-7% 4-5 years ago and has now dropped to 2-3%, then Apple isn't going to wait around until that goes negative to punch out. As soon as that is relatively flat growth the R&D funding is going to start drying up and Apple will be looking at time to an exit.

Demand just means more than one person wants one. There is demand for XServe, Apple printers , etc. and they aren't products. Demand is necessary but not sufficient criteria in Apple's product selection process. Chasing every single small sliver of demand is one reason those PC vendors' margins are so small. The truth is nobody can time those positive-to-negative demand transitions well. Unless, punch out with a safety margin there will be instances where get caught with negative outcomes.

Frankly, some of this is shifting demand also. Some customers are moving to lower price points. Where workstation and the Mac Pro in particular with its ghetto ("A/V workstation biased pitches ) have been suffering is back-filling those natural "downmarket computer" transitions with new value added offerings.

 

[ActionableMango]

One of the benefits to selling Mac Pros, as long as it is even a little bit profitable, is that Apple gets to use Mac Pros themselves.

I can see Apple employees using an HP printer, a Microsoft keyboard, and a Logitech mouse, but I'm having a really hard time picturing Apple engineers choosing Dell workstations for heavy engineering work.

 

[goMac]

There is demand for XServe, Apple printers , etc. and they aren't products.

There wasn't.

Demand for XServe collapsed due to Apple's servicing plans and the Mac Pro being a decent substitute. Demand for Apple printers? Don't make me laugh.

Both are VERY different markets than the Mac Pro.

 

[deconstruct60]

All of which is great, but there is still no evidence the Mac Pro is unprofitable, unlike all the products you listed.

The MacBook, the MBP 17" those were unprofitable too? I don't really buy XServe being unprofitable. Low sales, yes. Some corner case BTO option yes, but the overall line up? Not really.

(I don't agree with the non-dockable monitors bit being an indication of anything. That's just Apple being Apple.)

Apple being Apple very often highlights why Apple does thing. They are who they are; not who people want them to be.

Not to mention, out of all of those things, the Mac Pro probably has the lowest R&D costs.

Lowest isn't a factor. It is ROI on those R&D costs to the overall Mac market including Mac App store sales. On top of the that is the relatively fixed overall R&D budget for Macs. The Mac products have to compete to survive. The notion that Mac Pro gets a special "get out of jail free" card is entirely unsupported by any evidence. Apple is like alot of Silicon Valley companies that run "lean". They chronically understaff/underresource product line ups to

Combine that with 10.9 focusing on "power users",

That remains to be seen. Multiple monitor support isn't exactly focusing on power users. It would far more significant if there were some substantial APIs added that allowed for more value adding apps that a machine like the Mac Pro could more effectively exploit.

Frankly, just about any Mac can have multiple monitors. That is not a Mac Pro specific purview.

and I think we'll see a new Mac Pro.

I think we will see a new Mac Pro also. What I don't think is that the Mac Pro has some special status and that what users actually buy (or not) over the next 12-18 month will critically determine whether there is another Mac Pro after that.

It is extremely clear there is a faction within Apple that isn't keen on funding the Mac Pro. Those folks will win if users and value adding apps don't show up.

 

[goMac]

The MacBook, the MBP 17" those were unprofitable too? I don't really buy XServe being unprofitable. Low sales, yes. Some corner case BTO option yes, but the overall line up? Not really.

Neither was really discontinued as much as replaced. Apple shipped a notebook with the same resolution as the 17". It's no accident one of the pre-listed resolutions for the Retina 15" is the same resolution as the 17".

XServe was not profitable. People didn't buy them because the support plans weren't acceptable. Dell offers on site support and repair within 24 hours. If you have important data, you going to go with an XServe or a Dell?

Plus, Apple had a Mac Pro to fill the role.

Apple being Apple very often highlights why Apple does thing. They are who they are; not who people want them to be.

Apple is just trying to build the best monitor for both laptops and desktops. The Cinema Display grew a Magsafe adapter in 2009, and two Mac Pros shipped after that. Apple still sells the Mini. Is the Mini in danger too then because of a Magsafe cable on a display?

Lowest isn't a factor. It is ROI on those R&D costs to the overall Mac market including Mac App store sales.

Otherwise known as "does it turn a profit?" I believe that's exactly what I said.

That remains to be seen. Multiple monitor support isn't exactly focusing on power users. It would far more significant if there were some substantial APIs added that allowed for more value adding apps that a machine like the Mac Pro could more effectively exploit.

What APIs are still missing? GCD and OpenCL cover most everything Pro apps need.

Frankly, just about any Mac can have multiple monitors. That is not a Mac Pro specific purview.

Didn't say it was.

I think we will see a new Mac Pro also. What I don't think is that the Mac Pro has some special status and that what users actually buy (or not) over the next 12-18 month will critically determine whether there is another Mac Pro after that.

Just like every single Mac ever shipped in the history of Apple.

It is extremely clear there is a faction within Apple that isn't keen on funding the Mac Pro. Those folks will win if users and value adding apps don't show up.

And I think that faction was run out of Apple a few months ago.

Apple® today announced executive management changes that will encourage even more collaboration between the Company’s world-class hardware, software and services teams.

Translation from the corporate speak: Everybody needs to play nice now. Want to see if iOS or Mac won that fight? Look at who got fired and who's in charge of iOS now.

 

[sash]

I can see Apple employees using an HP printer, a Microsoft keyboard, and a Logitech mouse, but I'm having a really hard time picturing Apple engineers choosing Dell workstations for heavy engineering work.

A good point, I reckon.

 

[calaverasgrande]

I could be wrong, but from what I understand of how cloud farms work is, you upload the needed files, set the parameters, it processes, and when finished you download the files, in short it isn't dependent on net speed.

it is dependent on net speeds if it takes as long or longer to upload your project file than it would to render locally.
Full HD video is a bandwidth hog. That is why even large broadcast entities are still using removable media like XDcam, SDHC and eSATA/1394/USB3 drives to shuttle project elements between site locations.

As far as the cloud model, it is not only dependent on wide bandwidth, but a stable connection. You probably arent aware of how many times a week your network connection drops out completely or "sags" to a lower connection speed. This is why I laugh at sales pitches for cloud solutions. They all exist in this ideal space where you have 100% uptime and can always get to your data. Out here in the real world our ISP just gives us excuses.

As far as the Mac Pro. It is obviously not a major slice of the revenue pie. But like a lot of things in IT, you need a complete ecosystem of devices to sell the package. Part of the apple package is a development platform with serious muscle. While it is possible to get real work done on iMacs and highly specced Macbooks, when you are running overnight jobs and crunching the CPUs heavily you probably want something designed for heavy CPU loads. Notebooks and such space constricted designs as the Mini and iMac are not going to be happy with heavy CPU loads for extended periods.

So in short, they may not make much profit on the Mac Pro, but it is kind of needed for the rest of the pie. I wouldn't be surprised if 10 years on the Mac Pro is only available to licensed developers. Kind of similar to the Sony Playstation development hardware.

 

[Zwhaler]

I talked with my buddy yesterday who works at Apple, when I asked him about the upcoming Mac Pros he said I would be dissapointed in what Apple had planned for the Mac Pro. He didn't say what that meant just that I would be glad I went with the 2010 when I did! Not sure what to make of that but that's what an Apple Corporate employee told me!

 

[goMac]

I talked with my buddy yesterday who works at Apple, when I asked him about the upcoming Mac Pros he said I would be dissapointed in what Apple had planned for the Mac Pro. He didn't say what that meant just that I would be glad I went with the 2010 when I did! Not sure what to make of that but that's what an Apple Corporate employee told me!

It would not surprise if whatever Apple releases disappoints a group of people.

 

[TheEasterBunny]

it is dependent on net speeds if it takes as long or longer to upload your project file than it would to render locally.
Full HD video is a bandwidth hog. That is why even large broadcast entities are still using removable media like XDcam, SDHC and eSATA/1394/USB3 drives to shuttle project elements between site locations.

As far as the cloud model, it is not only dependent on wide bandwidth, but a stable connection. You probably arent aware of how many times a week your network connection drops out completely or "sags" to a lower connection speed. This is why I laugh at sales pitches for cloud solutions. They all exist in this ideal space where you have 100% uptime and can always get to your data. Out here in the real world our ISP just gives us excuses.

As far as the Mac Pro. It is obviously not a major slice of the revenue pie. But like a lot of things in IT, you need a complete ecosystem of devices to sell the package. Part of the apple package is a development platform with serious muscle. While it is possible to get real work done on iMacs and highly specced Macbooks, when you are running overnight jobs and crunching the CPUs heavily you probably want something designed for heavy CPU loads. Notebooks and such space constricted designs as the Mini and iMac are not going to be happy with heavy CPU loads for extended periods.

So in short, they may not make much profit on the Mac Pro, but it is kind of needed for the rest of the pie. I wouldn't be surprised if 10 years on the Mac Pro is only available to licensed developers. Kind of similar to the Sony Playstation development hardware.

I only upload between 10 and 20GB of jpegs each week. During my transfers I can see the connection fluctuating, but for jpegs this isn't that big of a deal (lots of small files), unless it drops too low or stops, then it will corrupt them. My software tells me when that happens. Since video is one big file that could be difficult.
For some this will mean hackintosh, and others windows. For me an OS being out of date makes little to no difference.
I would not say I'm a "power user" either, I just like having a little, and I don't like external drives.

 

[Zwhaler]

It would not surprise if whatever Apple releases disappoints a group of people.

True, even though we all know Apple has been a huge disappointment to the Mac Pro community. After last year's update, I wasn't impressed, possibly hoping they would make up for it this year. My buddy made it sound like that isn't the case. Apple is focused on where the revenue is. He would know, his department produces an average of 33 million dollars per employee.

 

[deconstruct60]

After last year's update, I wasn't impressed,

That update wasn't designed or intended to impress anyone. It was more a communications exercise to denote that they had not killed off the Mac Pro. If Apple had released nothing then the conclusion would have been drawn that the product had no future. All the competitive boxes rolling out on Xeon E5 in May-July and Apple doing nothing. Why wouldn't people draw that conclusion? So they put something in that window to show some activity.

With the update Apple could leak that another update was coming in 2013. Clearly they needed time to get their act together.

possibly hoping they would make up for it this year.

Frankly the "Pro" market is often disappointed because they do horrible expectation management on their own. So Apple doesn't do an substantive upgrade in 2012 so the one is 2013 has to be twice good to make up for it. Instead of the reasonable evolution that competitive boxes are doing, Apple is doing something super-duper revolutionary to "skip a generation and leave everyone in the dust" ( like they have ever done that). Then the normal evolutionary progress box comes and the Mac Pro is "horrible bust".
Nothing negative there was actually Apple's doing. "Its Apple's fault they didn't dispel the wild speculation"; not really.

My buddy made it sound like that isn't the case.

A "super duper ultrarevolutionary" update likely never was going to be the case.

It is extremely unlikely that anything Apple drops in 2013 would be worth passing up a 2010 model in 2010-2011 and getting real work done for two years than to have sat on a much slower machine that length of time and play 'catch up' in 2013.