It takes a lot of money to 1) engineer a new product 2) make sure its pricepoint isn't too bad 3) re-engineer if necessary 4) re-tool the manufacturing plants 5) market the changes.
True for a completely new product. But in this case, it's really just a firmware change to allow for the newer CPU's (new microcode).
It's possible Apple could surprise us with a new case design, or even additional features on the board, but I don't think it that likely. At best, maybe the case exterior, as that would be re-used with future systems (internal's reworked as needed of course). Cost being the reason, as Intel is well aware of this scenario, and intended the new CPU's to be a drop-in after a microcode update to lower system manufacturing costs (no new boards or retooling that's not voluntary, which allows costs to be drawn out over 2yrs rather than each).
If the Mac Pro isn't raking in the dough, they wont bother releasing a new one for a long time--that does not, however, mean the line is finished.
If it stops earning anything, they're likely to dump it (i.e. any work or continued production at all results in a loss). Any other company would if it wasn't chalked up to an annomoly (i.e. market disappears/changes permanently where the existing product no longer fulfills a market).
Hopefully, it won't come to that, as there's a fair few independents and larger entities that have a significant investment in OS X (forced to switch in an unplanned manner could cause some to go under due to the lack of funds to purchase both new systems and software, particularly the software, as it can easily exceed the cost of the system/s).
How can someone trust a company like Google for his personal business is beyond my understanding ... 🙄
Perhaps cost was the basis.
😱
That said, if budgets are limited (little to no software budget; undercapitalization comes to mind), and UNIX is known/desired, then Linux (or possibly Open Solaris) would have been a better choice IMO.
😉
