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I don't really accept that. So what if it's $10K? Even if they doubled the price, so what? There are lots of firms that would outfit their studios with dozens o

I don't really accept that. So what if it's $10K? Even if they doubled the price, so what? There are lots of firms that would outfit their studios with dozens of $20K Mac Pros. In 1996/7, the ANS/700, running a special version of AIX, was upwards of $25K. Not many were sold, and yet the ANS group was still profitable. Steve Jobs killed it along with A/UX in his return. This "$10K is too expensive" line doesn't fly. Right now, just upgrading a Mac Pro processor can push the price over $13K. Again, so what? I'm certain there were more than a handful $50K configured 2019 Mac Pros sold. This kind of thing is expensive for the individual, but for a business it's merely a commodity. $50K is cheap because it couldn't even pay the salary of one developer for a year, and the Mac Pro is useful for at least a few years, so cost is more like $16K/yr. That's an absolutely nothing business expense.

ryanwaggoner 4y ago
At Apple's scale, selling tens of thousands of these could both be very profitable and still not worth the effort and distraction.
ibejoeb 4y ago
And it is relatively less than what one would pay for, say, an sgi workstation years ago. Overall, I don't think it's the price that is off-putting for a pro.
acchow 4y ago
> Not many were sold, and yet the ANS group was still profitable. Profitability isn't sufficient for a company like Apple. It has to be the best use of these resources - it needs to be more profitable than dedicating the team to work on something else at Apple.
- Maursault 4y ago
  I don't think that was it. Jobs wouldn't tolerate any other UNIX at Apple except NeXTSTEP. He killed A/UX while still in negotiations for Apple to purchase NeXT. I don't even think Apple worked on those versions of AIX. IBM likely provided it under contract. ANS only ever ran AIX and NetBSD.
  - fzzzy 4y ago
    A/UX never ran on powerpc so it was pretty dead by that point already.
fnordpiglet 4y ago
In 1996 a high end SGI desktop workstation cost about $45,000. The low end was $14,000. In todays dollars that’s $85,000 for a high end graphics production workstation to $27000 for a low end. Kids these days are spoiled.
helsinkiandrew 4y ago
> This "$10K is too expensive" line doesn't fly. I didn’t say it was too expensive, I said it was a niche product - resources are tight at Apple, and it looks like we’re heading into a recession so they are concentrating on the products that sell in the millions rather than others

ryanwaggoner 4y ago

At Apple's scale, selling tens of thousands of these could both be very profitable and still not worth the effort and distraction.

ibejoeb 4y ago

And it is relatively less than what one would pay for, say, an sgi workstation years ago. Overall, I don't think it's the price that is off-putting for a pro.

acchow 4y ago

> Not many were sold, and yet the ANS group was still profitable. Profitability isn't sufficient for a company like Apple. It has to be the best use of these resources - it needs to be more profitable than dedicating the team to work on something else at Apple.

Maursault 4y ago
I don't think that was it. Jobs wouldn't tolerate any other UNIX at Apple except NeXTSTEP. He killed A/UX while still in negotiations for Apple to purchase NeXT. I don't even think Apple worked on those versions of AIX. IBM likely provided it under contract. ANS only ever ran AIX and NetBSD.
- fzzzy 4y ago
  A/UX never ran on powerpc so it was pretty dead by that point already.

fnordpiglet 4y ago

In 1996 a high end SGI desktop workstation cost about $45,000. The low end was $14,000. In todays dollars that’s $85,000 for a high end graphics production workstation to $27000 for a low end. Kids these days are spoiled.

helsinkiandrew 4y ago

> This "$10K is too expensive" line doesn't fly. I didn’t say it was too expensive, I said it was a niche product - resources are tight at Apple, and it looks like we’re heading into a recession so they are concentrating on the products that sell in the millions rather than others