Apple 'Questioning' the Future of its Mac Pro Line?

[gugy]

We know that Apple has been selling the Mac Pro's by 5 digit numbers (at most, it may be 4 digit even) annually, yet they sold around 4.5 million desktop macs in 2011. So Mac Pro sales are less than 0.1% of all desktop sales. I'm assuming a considerable portion of desktops go to professionals since people prefer laptops for casual use, the Mac Pro user base would be very small in the entire professional market.

Obviously this is based on the assumption that most desktop buyers use it for work.

There is no question that the MacPro lags behind the portable and iMac solutions offered by Apple. MacPro is also a huge per UNIT profit maker for them.
Are they keeping the MacPro alive in the future? I don't know but I can tell you there are many people who works on the hi-end arena that definitely would like to keep using their machines than jump into a PC one.

 

[AppliedMicro]

I believe the current imac can only handle 16GB of RAM.

It can handle 32GB.
Apple just doesn't offer it.
Others do:

http://9to5mac.com/2011/05/09/upgra...with-inexpensive-ram-from-owc-and-trans-intl/

 

[NAG]

I am fine with that. If Apple can create a better system to suit professionals, I am all for it. iMac in other hand is definitely not it due the lack of expandability and AIO solution.

Agree that the iMac is probably not the right machine for this. I'd anticipate them making a nicer Mac mini if anything (with the iMacs acting more like terminals). The mini really seems to be morphing into the do anything you want Mac with the iMac as the here is a huge monitor and oh there is a computer in there too Mac. We'll see what happens.

 

[archipellago]

If the Pro (or rather, workstation) market is unprofitable (especially if it's shrinking), there is no reason to be in it. That goes for any market.

More rubbish....

Markets do not work in isolation!

 

[wikus]

Yeah, because the only jobs on the planet relate to advertising, branding and marketing.

Not to mention those aren't very good examples of why you need a Mac Pro.

Using a mac pro for graphic design in avertising, branding and marketing is NOT a good example?

Please exit this thread.

 

[deconstruct60]

What report are you referring to?

Err, The article this whole thread is based on. From the Appleinsider story

"...In particular, internal discussions were said to focus around the fact that sales of the high-end workstations to both consumers and enterprises have dropped off so considerably that the Mac Pro is no longer a particularly profitable operation for Apple. ... "

If accurate, that is a huge problem. That decline in sales is going to put it on the chopping block.

[part of the hiccup though is that Intel's last two Xeon transitions have had hiccups. And it also has introduced the E3 into the line up to paritally chase folks moving downmarket. ]

They sell more laptops than desktops proportionally today than 10 years ago, that does not mean that the desktop section is shrinking since Mac sales in total are up.

Yes. But the quote about says that the Mac Pro sales are down. The Mac Pro doesn't have to match the lower prices Macs unit-by-unit but the year over year sales growth has be in line the others.

Otherwise the Mac Pro is not contributing to corporate growth. If it isn't contributing to growth (and there are other extremely fast growing segments ) the resources being applied to the Mac Pro will get yanked and assigned to something that is growing.

Did you notice how the shrinking iPods didn't get much of an update on this cycle? (shuffle ... nothing , nano minor tweak , iPod Touch ... oooo a white case. )

I would think that iMacs would take a larger hit from laptops than Mac Pro since what it offers in terms of processing power and expansion, can't be done with a laptop, unlike the iMac.

Yeah but you are forgetting the fact that the iMac is taking sales away from the Mac Pro too. mini computers took sales away from mainframes. PCs took sales away from minis. Laptops took sales away from desktops.

This is all because computer components get faster and more affordable over time and the problems that most people want to solve on computers don't. as the problems shrink to more affordable computers the customers move down the product line up.

The difficult issue the Mac Pro has is that it is stuck in the "over $2,000" price range. As the customer problems/workloads go down there is a large need to find new customer with new big problems.

 

[danielwsmithee]

We're not even at mainstream 6-core processors yet.

That is why I said they are "coming." The next processor release that would work for the Mac Pro is shipping in 6-core and 8-core variants. Apple could have a shipping 16-core iMac by spring if they want to.

 

[wiz329]

I waited for 10.7.2 to move, as it felt the major overhaul would have its problems.
I have an iMac 21.5 with a 27 theatre display as the primary screen. I have read how full screen basically knocks out any second screen, but seems to me it was introduced to help people with smaller screen space, for instance single screen users. If you don't use it, no difference from Snow Leopard, surely? It is not like anybody has lost screen usage with its introduction, or do I miss something?

But i DO use full screen with multiple monitors. Or at least I used to -- for applications that allowed it (quicktime for example). Now I use VLC for anything I need full screen.
It works just fine with applications who don't use Lion's UI for full screen -- ie moving to a completely new space or desktop or whatever its called. The problem is, with more and more applications using Lion's full screen UI, it doesn't work.

 

[iBug2]

There is no question that the MacPro lags behind the portable and iMac solutions offered by Apple. MacPro is also a huge per UNIT profit maker for them.
Are they keeping the MacPro alive in the future? I don't know but I can tell you there are many people who works on the hi-end arena that definitely would like to keep using their machines than jump into a PC one.

I'd assume the profit margins are higher than iMacs, but not that much higher to justify it. So even with those high profits the Mac Pro might end up losing money to Apple.

Mac Pro doesn't lag behind anything. It just is a niche product, and has been for a while now.

 

[zap2]

The thing about a Mac Mini, or iMac is that tey have about the same power as a MacBook Pro.

I'd take an iMac over the MacBook Pro. Although the MBP Quad are going to beat the Mini's, but I'd take the AMD graphics equipped Mini over the base MBP 13"

 

[scottsjack]

No more Mac Pro without a similar desktop replacement would be end of my Mac days. It was good while it lasted.

I'm just not interested in pretty looking, family oriented machines like iMacs and minis regardless of how powerful they are. With Mac OS X heading toward the same closed garden approach as iOS it's probably just as well.

 

[SVegard]

Well...

If Apple disscontinue the Mac Pro without replacing it with a new high-end machine I will throw Logic and Apple out the door and get a PC with Pro Tools HDX, that goes for the rest of the pro audio marked and mosy of the "prosumers" as well...

And yes, I would throw all my iToys in the garbage too. After all they are only extentions to my Mac Pro and MacBookPro...


Unbelivable how many stupid comments there is in here. People telling us what we need and not. Who needs 4TB storage and overkill CPUs? Well, I'm not into the video/3D field. But I can tell you that those of us working with music/audio/ sound design etc. needs it!

Or perhaps I should just plugg my studiogear into a ****ing iPad...

 

[oiuh151]

What I dont understand is why people are so confident on relying on Thunderbolt to fix all the holes with the absence of the Mac Pro.

Given apples incredibly ***** history of giving its consumers choice and even more so when it comes to graphics cards, why would anyone think that there would be offerings in terms of GPU via thunderbolt?

And while were on the topic of thunderbolt, how many products are actually available that use thunderbolt? Has anyone actually seen anything be taken advantage of with the use of thunderbolt?

And since when did thunderbolt become so popular? Last time I checked, USB 3.0 was dominating the market share by a fine margin.

Here's a bold statement: Thunderbolt is and will be their new Firewire.

It's a new technology, of course there aren't many peripherals. But the thing with Thunderbolt is that you don't need the Thunderbolt interface to use it. You can hook up HDD's via eSata if you wanted.

No, 4 drive bays are not that many. But a lot of pros use that many drives just for boot and every day work. Any sort of RAID and you NEED 4-5 bays. Most external storage is just for archives and/or backups.
Its a pain to have to use TB for stuff your computer uses on a day to day basis. Try sticking in a mixture of HDDs and SSDs into a promise enclosure. Its just so much easier to do this with the expandability that the MP offers. And that's to say nothing of PCI -- its definitely not dead yet! You want to hook everything up -- graphics cards, external storage, GPU, displays -- all via TB. What a mess, first of all, and even 2 TB ports won't support all that bandwidth!
Yes, you are right. THEORETICALLY it could be done. but WHY, when you have a perfectly good system already in the MP that people need and use!

Also, no, i do do care about the rest of Apple's line. I think its great that they have the iphone and the ipad, and that people use them to get work done. I'm just telling you why its a terrible idea to drop the MP line.

I was never arguing for Apple to drop the Mac Pro line. Go back and read my original post. I don't know where you pulling all of this other **** out of that I never said.

I was correcting your false accusation and telling you that there is a solution to the other problem you listed should you absolutely need it.

 

[gugy]

I'd assume the profit margins are higher than iMacs, but not that much higher to justify it. So even with those high profits the Mac Pro might end up losing money to Apple.

Mac Pro doesn't lag behind anything. It just is a niche product, and has been for a while now.

Lags behind in unit sales.

 

[vvswarup]

This doesn't make sense. The Mac Pro is the flagship of the Apple computer line-up. A brand like Apple should be willing to operate their flagship without being profitable. Apple certainly won't be losing money as long as they make drastic changes like a redesign.

I thank my stars everyday that you are not CEO of Apple. If a flagship product is losing money, you either figure out how stop losing money or find another flagship product.

 

[iBug2]

That is why I said they are "coming." The next processor release that would work for the Mac Pro is shipping in 6-core and 8-core variants. Apple could have a shipping 16-core iMac by spring if they want to.

16 core iMac? Impossible. You can't put an Xeon in an iMac, let alone two.

 

[george-brooks]

Hopefully not! Perhaps the problems in performance are due to the machine's strengths: the ability to upgrade individual components as opposed to buying an entirely new machine. I buy a new Macbook pro every 1-2 years because they are upgraded significantly enough to make the upgrade worthwhile, but I have had my Mac Pro for 4 years because I can continue to upgrade as needed. However, I am overdue for a better processor, so I hope to upgrade to the next generation Mac Pro. Or perhaps not, now. But I feel this article is leaving something out. Apple certainly knows that professional users cannot settle for an iMac. I doubt they would eliminate the mac pro without replacing it with something equally powerful and upgradable in a smaller, more manageable form factor. Anyone remember that article from a few months back about the possibility of a 19" rackmountable mac pro? Perhaps it is in fact a mac pro/Xserve replacement?

 

[iBug2]

Lags behind in unit sales.

Oh, in terms of unit sales, "lag" is somewhat of an understatement.

Anyway, I'll say it again. Apple did not abandon the pro market. Pro market abandoned Mac Pro.

 

[wiz329]

Just give me mini modules, which I can connect through TB and it works parallel, and a way to install a decent GPU and I'll be happy. I'll just buy 10 minis for the same price of the top end Mac Pro, that gives 20 cores running parallel and up to 80GB Ram. That'd be cool.

Good luck. Quad-channel DDR3 1333MHz bandwidth has a theoretical peak of 42.7GB/s per CPU. Easily enough to saturate TB. Forget anything else that has to use the TB bandwidth

 

[dreamora]

I think its funny that apple questions the place of a product that they themself missplaced as overpriced high end gadget since day 1 intead of making it reachable by power users and users with the need of a real gpu, not a gimped mobile one ...

Might be that the form in which it exists is nothing for the future, but if they really decide to piss off the power users in that form, that might inevitably mark the end of mac as a high end movie - CG - Art platform itself as the imacs are kids toys for any power user and the experiments with thunderbolt gpus aren't gonna change that due to apples driver monopol

 

[gugy]

Agree that the iMac is probably not the right machine for this. I'd anticipate them making a nicer Mac mini if anything (with the iMacs acting more like terminals). The mini really seems to be morphing into the do anything you want Mac with the iMac as the here is a huge monitor and oh there is a computer in there too Mac. We'll see what happens.

Ideally they would have a machine that can be expandable. Macmini would probably rely on Thunderbolt that at this point in time is hard to judge how good they will be in professional environment.

 

[vitzr]

<snip>Because it's in line with market realities.

The only people that would subscribe to this "reality" are those who...

Have no use for a professionals computer.

Have not used and enjoyed the exemplary machine the Mac Pro is.

Do not work in the Enterprise or any one of a number of "design firms" or other environments where computing that shapes our world, is conducted.

Thermal dynamics, Fluid dynamics, 3D design, Mathematical & Scientific Computational work, and on and on the list goes.

"Market Realities"? Oh please... some have NO clue.

 

[OceanView]

Even though Mac Pros are way too expensive, I feel Apple should not discontinue production of this line.
Apple should think of reducing the price and making it more affordable so that more people could buy these and increase their sales numbers.

 

[iBug2]

Good luck. Quad-channel DDR3 1333MHz bandwidth has a theoretical peak of 42.7GB/s per CPU. Easily enough to saturate TB. Forget anything else that has to use the TB bandwidth

Dual channel 100mbit TB will do the job. (Still will be saturated but it'll be decent enough). Intel just has to keep on their promise.

 

[MacintoshMan]

Look for pitch forks if this happens.


This would effectively end pro app development for mac os x. If software vendors are going to be limited to mac mini processing power or iMac screen restraints, then software devs will no longer pay and invest in the os x platform.


If apple is really only thinking about profit margins when it comes to the mac pro, they are in trouble. Even if it was a los leader, the presence of Mac Pros used in Post production work and media related work is astounding. Get rid of that, you're pissing on thousands of customers and no longer will your laptops be advertised and recognized for free in tv episodes.