“Despite the substantial shift in spending and usage models from PCs toward tablets and phones in recent years, very few people are giving up on their PC – they are just making it last longer,” said Loren Loverde.

http://www.idc.com/getdoc.jsp?containerId=prUS40704015

This is another reason why a flexible, upgradable Mac Pro is more appealing to Mac Pros. Given the demand to buy many more electronic devices (and stay up on them, particularly phones) it comes as no surprise that folks need their personal computers to last longer. This is an another argument why the Mac Pro has done poorly. Without the clear path to upgradeable GPUs, for example, why would people purchase a machine they can’t see using for five years without an upgrade path?

If Apple created a new Mac Pro that spoke to professional flexibility and upgradeability on key performance items like GPUs and even CPUs, this would attract folks to outlay top dollar to get into a machine they can grow and live with for many years.

“Despite the substantial shift in spending and usage models from PCs toward tablets and phones in recent years, very few people are giving up on their PC – they are just making it last longer,” said Loren Loverde.

http://www.idc.com/getdoc.jsp?containerId=prUS40704015

This is another reason why a flexible, upgradable Mac Pro is more appealing to Mac Pros. Given the demand to buy many more electronic devices (and stay up on them, particularly phones) it comes as no surprise that folks need their personal computers to last longer. This is an another argument why the Mac Pro has done poorly. Without the clear path to upgradeable GPUs, for example, why would people purchase a machine they can’t see using for five years without an upgrade path?

If Apple created a new Mac Pro that spoke to professional flexibility and upgradeability on key performance items like GPUs and even CPUs, this would attract folks to outlay top dollar to get into a machine they can grow and live with for many years.

On the other hand, the Pro box that people actually want gives pros real flexibility. And flexibility goes a long way in the face of many changes afoot in the market.

On the other hand, the Pro box that people actually want gives pros real flexibility. And flexibility goes a long way in the face of many changes afoot in the market.

For the other 95% of my work (filmmaker), I’m waiting for an updated macbook pro 15 so I can render my darn FCPx faster!.. common Apple gimmi a real speed boost already !!!!

For the other 95% of my work (filmmaker), I’m waiting for an updated macbook pro 15 so I can render my darn FCPx faster!.. common Apple gimmi a real speed boost already !!!!

This is the opposite of the iPhone SE, which Apple offered for the same reason that they offered the iPad Mini, the Mac Mini, the iPod Shuffle and the MacBook Air: to compete in down market segments against good products offered by competing platforms. The Mac Mini and MacBook Air were mixed bags but the iPod Shuffle and iPad Mini worked perfectly, as they caused competing MP3 players from the likes of Microsoft and Sony as well as Android tablets generally to mostly fail in the marketplace.

So it isn’t about the beautiful aluminum box. (Especially since Apple products didn’t begin to consistently feature aluminum until relatively recently). It is about having the hardware capable of powering the latest professional software. Apple’s current method of designing and delivering products (hardware + OS) will generally have them 12-18 months behind the latest tech. Changing their methodology – and doing so just for their Pro line of devices – probably isn’t worth it because such devices will only make up a small percentage of their overall device sales and revenue. Maintaining different multiple design methodologies is cumbersome to manage as well as expensive, so unless there is going to be some tangible payoff it is best not to bother.

So Apple does not just need the beautiful aluminum box, but A) the ability to easily and meaningfully upgrade the performance of that beautiful box so that it will be able to keep up with the performance offered by competing platforms and B) do so without introducing a new management, design, R&D, manufacturing, marketing supply chain etc. layer that is specific to one product (or product line).

I suppose they could achieve this by spinning off a separate, self-managed division or acquiring a division and allowing it to operate independently, but either way they wouldn’t make truly Apple products. So, looks like modularity is the best way to marry Wintel workstation with the Apple UX/UI and the pretty box.

This is the opposite of the iPhone SE, which Apple offered for the same reason that they offered the iPad Mini, the Mac Mini, the iPod Shuffle and the MacBook Air: to compete in down market segments against good products offered by competing platforms. The Mac Mini and MacBook Air were mixed bags but the iPod Shuffle and iPad Mini worked perfectly, as they caused competing MP3 players from the likes of Microsoft and Sony as well as Android tablets generally to mostly fail in the marketplace.

So it isn’t about the beautiful aluminum box. (Especially since Apple products didn’t begin to consistently feature aluminum until relatively recently). It is about having the hardware capable of powering the latest professional software. Apple’s current method of designing and delivering products (hardware + OS) will generally have them 12-18 months behind the latest tech. Changing their methodology – and doing so just for their Pro line of devices – probably isn’t worth it because such devices will only make up a small percentage of their overall device sales and revenue. Maintaining different multiple design methodologies is cumbersome to manage as well as expensive, so unless there is going to be some tangible payoff it is best not to bother.

So Apple does not just need the beautiful aluminum box, but A) the ability to easily and meaningfully upgrade the performance of that beautiful box so that it will be able to keep up with the performance offered by competing platforms and B) do so without introducing a new management, design, R&D, manufacturing, marketing supply chain etc. layer that is specific to one product (or product line).

I suppose they could achieve this by spinning off a separate, self-managed division or acquiring a division and allowing it to operate independently, but either way they wouldn’t make truly Apple products. So, looks like modularity is the best way to marry Wintel workstation with the Apple UX/UI and the pretty box.

Let’s look at it this way. They went backwards to produce the iPhone SE (originally the iPhone 5), in an old body, and the phone is taking off like hot-cakes. Why? Because it is well suited and practical for what a lot of people want. That same logic can easily apply to a redo of the Mac Pro. Just give us a beautiful aluminum box again (it can certainly be smaller) and pro customers will love them again for it.

As for the software makers, they have their own business needs and pressures to consider, and that means designing their products for the most powerful systems that are commercially available. If they don’t do it, the competition will, and as their target market is so small – maybe a few hundred thousand to few million people in each field – and their products so expensive to develop that getting left behind because of trying to support underpowered hardware may mean going out of business. Of course, AutoDesk will always be fine, but the smaller companies selling even more specialized software will not.

The only way for Apple to “keep up” would be to license an OS to third party manufacturers. Except that since this is not Apple’s business model, they would have far more to lose than gain. Even if the licensing terms were designed to – for example – keep companies from underselling Apple on their existing consumer-based product lines like MacBooks/iPads and thereby prevent a “race to the bottom” type situation that currently plagues Windows and Android, piracy would become a real problem, especially in countries where violating western IP is a core business tactic. As these JUST HAPPEN to be the countries where most of the world’s remaining tech hardware companies that would license a hypothetical “macOS Enterprise” are, license an OS to those companies today, and there would be a dozen MacBook Air knockoffs available on eBay in 6 months, not to mention free macOS images on torrents.

So there are just going to be some areas where Apple will never be able to compete because of the nature of the market and the type of company that Apple is. Servers and other rack/data center enterprise hardware is another one.

The one way that Apple could possibly compete in this space: emulate Google’s Project Ara for smartphones and tablets (which LG and Lenovo have successfully implemented in viable products this year) with modularized hardware. Apple could create professional PCs that would allow vital components to be upgraded annually by replacing modules that contain (for example) processing, graphics and perhaps even bus hardware. That would keep Apple from having to redesign new systems from the ground up every time a third party creates a better CPU, GPU, I/O or networking component. Of course, they will not have the level of optimization and integration that Apple likes, but that could be saved for the consumer and general purpose products. The professionals who just need the latest and the fastest could just order the latest modules from Apple and plug them right in.

Beyond an approach like that, Apple just is not the sort of company that is able to keep up in this space and probably should not try.

Let’s look at it this way. They went backwards to produce the iPhone SE (originally the iPhone 5), in an old body, and the phone is taking off like hot-cakes. Why? Because it is well suited and practical for what a lot of people want. That same logic can easily apply to a redo of the Mac Pro. Just give us a beautiful aluminum box again (it can certainly be smaller) and pro customers will love them again for it.

As for the software makers, they have their own business needs and pressures to consider, and that means designing their products for the most powerful systems that are commercially available. If they don’t do it, the competition will, and as their target market is so small – maybe a few hundred thousand to few million people in each field – and their products so expensive to develop that getting left behind because of trying to support underpowered hardware may mean going out of business. Of course, AutoDesk will always be fine, but the smaller companies selling even more specialized software will not.

The only way for Apple to “keep up” would be to license an OS to third party manufacturers. Except that since this is not Apple’s business model, they would have far more to lose than gain. Even if the licensing terms were designed to – for example – keep companies from underselling Apple on their existing consumer-based product lines like MacBooks/iPads and thereby prevent a “race to the bottom” type situation that currently plagues Windows and Android, piracy would become a real problem, especially in countries where violating western IP is a core business tactic. As these JUST HAPPEN to be the countries where most of the world’s remaining tech hardware companies that would license a hypothetical “macOS Enterprise” are, license an OS to those companies today, and there would be a dozen MacBook Air knockoffs available on eBay in 6 months, not to mention free macOS images on torrents.

So there are just going to be some areas where Apple will never be able to compete because of the nature of the market and the type of company that Apple is. Servers and other rack/data center enterprise hardware is another one.

The one way that Apple could possibly compete in this space: emulate Google’s Project Ara for smartphones and tablets (which LG and Lenovo have successfully implemented in viable products this year) with modularized hardware. Apple could create professional PCs that would allow vital components to be upgraded annually by replacing modules that contain (for example) processing, graphics and perhaps even bus hardware. That would keep Apple from having to redesign new systems from the ground up every time a third party creates a better CPU, GPU, I/O or networking component. Of course, they will not have the level of optimization and integration that Apple likes, but that could be saved for the consumer and general purpose products. The professionals who just need the latest and the fastest could just order the latest modules from Apple and plug them right in.

Beyond an approach like that, Apple just is not the sort of company that is able to keep up in this space and probably should not try.