[Tim Wilson] "'m curious: can you be more specific about what YOU think the lesson of FCP 7 is?"
I believe they realized that they made a mistake in prematurely EOL'ing FCP7 without an adequate replacement for some folks. So they quietly allowed it to continue to be sold. In fact, a friend recently bought 40 NEW seats of FCS/FCP7 for customer installations. I believe they know it was the wrong decision they made at that time, but simply didn't anticipate the continued ill will.
So if you look at the tower market, there continues to be some market for exactly that machine (Mac Pro). Call it old technology if you like, but if you have an installation based around networks, SANs, PCIe cards, etc. and need to add a few more of the same, then all the Thunderbolt connections and iMacs in the world are totally useless to you.
There's very little new internal cost to Apple to simply continue to make the same machine for a while and bump up performance incrementally. While they do that, they can: A) wait for the demand to simply die off, or B) develop a replacement that might meet the needs (sort of) of that market. Let's say there is a machine in 2013. Does anyone seriously believe it will include PCIe slots? Or at least the same number as there is now (still inadequate for many)?
If they publicly kill the Mac Pro, then they walk away from a segment of the market that feels Apple still needs to be in the game as a "professional computer manufacturer" in order to be taken seriously. At this point in time, NOT having a tower is detrimental to the big picture. It's not about volume or gross sales but rather perception.
The lesson is that transition time is important to professional customers if you expect to keep them. And keeping them is important for the perceived marketing value of having them as customers.
- Oliver
Oliver Peters Post Production Services, LLC
Orlando, FL
http://www.oliverpeters.com 
Reply
Like
