Ted Landau Claims ‘Apple’s Mac Pro is Dead.’ I’m Gonna Go Ahead and Disagree

Ted Landau of the Mac Observer wrote a piece yesterday titled Mac Pro: R.I.P. in which he said:

Given these numbers [the benchmarks for the new i7 iMacs], why bother with a Mac Pro? Personally, I can only think of one and half reasons — neither of which will drive a large number of sales. The one reason is internal expandability. If you want three internal hard drives and two internal optical drives and an upgraded graphics card, you need a Mac Pro. The half reason is the display. The iMac has a great display. But if you want more flexibility, including the option to replace your initial display without having to get a new computer, you may prefer a Mac Pro.

For at least the next several years, I expect the market for the Mac Pro to remain. There will always be some people for whom the Mac Pro is the best fit. But their numbers will continue to decline. As with the old minicomputers that desktop computers replaced, all brands of large desktop computers (not just the Mac Pro) are destined to be phased out over time.

Obviously, anything like this will garner responses from the Macintosh-loving community. Today, Landau clarified his argument:

My first point was that the Mac Pro, as it exists today, is approaching the end of its life (which I’ll define as within the next 6 years). I did not conclude this simply because the current iMac is faster than the Mac Pro. Nor did I mean to imply that the iMac, as it exists today, can meet all the needs of people who currently use a Mac Pro.

What I did mean is that the current trend in computing is towards devices that can do more and more in less and less space. The technology is permitting this and the customers want it. Internal components keep shrinking; some components may become obsolete (optical drives?); there will be greater emphasis on accessing resources over a network. In the future, there may still be a Pro model that exceeds the specs of a lower-priced consumer model, but I expect it will be much smaller than the Pro is today. The days where a company will have a row of desktop behemoths, one on every desk, are numbered. That was the position I was taking and I continue to stand by it.

A second main point of the article was that the Mac Pro market might shrink to the point that it no longer makes sense for Apple to stay in it. While I still view this as a possibility, especially in the larger context of Apple’s overall shift towards consumer electronics, I admit to have overstated the case. Even though I know a few graphic/video artists who find a McBook Pro to be sufficient for their needs, I know that this is far from universally the case. There will always be a demand from professionals for machines that push the envelope of what a computer can do. And as long as Apple can continue to make a profit from catering to this audience, no matter how small the market is, there is no reason for Apple to stop.

Even with this clarification, I think Landau’s mantra of “The Mac Pro is Dead” is wrong.

Yes, the i7 iMac is stunning — in every way. Yes, the unibody MacBook Pros are great machines and far more powerful than the notebooks before them. I think very few — if any — Apple-watchers would disagree with the argument that Apple is shipping the best Macs ever.

But I think Landau underestimates the need for expandability and the desire of professionals to choose their own display. As great as the iMac is, it doesn’t give users options. And professional users want options. They need to add more video cards, RAID cards, more storage and RAM. And not everyone wants a sheet of glass between them and their work.

There’s also a perception at play here. Most professionals look at an iMac and see a machine they’d buy to use at home as a family computer. Until Apple starts marketing the iMac as a professional machine, the public won’t see it as such. And I’m not sure Apple wants their customers to see the iMac as a music-editing, video-rendering, number-crunching, code-compiling, expandable workstation. Even with the i7 iMacs, Apple’s advertising is all about the display, not about the power behind it.

My guess is that Apple will widen the performance gap between the iMac and Mac Pro before long, and things will get back to normal. My guess is that we’ll know within Landau’s 6 year timeframe.