Apple is a hardware company. They make their money by selling computers. (Less true these days thanks to the app store 30% top-slice, but it's in their DNA ...

Apple is a hardware company. They make their money by selling computers. (Less true these days thanks to the app store 30% top-slice, but it's in their DNA ...) To the extent that there's demand for high-performance workstation-grade Macs, this will relieve the pressure on that market to migrate away from the increasingly aging dead-end of the current Mac Pro. To the extent that, Moore's Law having ended, there's less incentive to upgrade regularly, having a less-expandable Pro Mac will give Apple more opportunities to entice power users to upgrade (by, for example, rolling a new iMac Pro every 18-24 months with an improved display panel or some other must-have feature: if you buy a pro machine you spend a lot of time staring at that screen, so a better display option is an obvious upgrade draw). A Pro machine with external monitors can't force an upgrade the same way as an all-in-one machine. If they roll out a lease-purchase arrangement similar to the iPhone Upgrade Program, this could drive sign-ups, pushing power users away from buying a maxed-out tower once every five years or so towards subscribing to the new maxed-out-closed-box-every-year club.