Apple: meh

[Peter Korsten]

Op 12-6-2013 12:38, Jay Vaughan schreef:

> Well this little Mac Pro: its no longer going to be a single-user device.  In other words, got a small office of people working with each other?  Well, they can all log in to the Mac Pro.  2 to 4, or probably 8 people, one computer in the room, nice monitors, and so on.  Its a 'New Desktop' strategy: make users share a single 'super-'computing device, properly.

I remember a test of a Z80 based machine from the early 1980's that 
would allow four simultaneous users... Hopefully Apple didn't try to 
patent it. :-)

> So, I think thats pretty nice, especially if the thing ships with 12 cores (or is it 16?) and fat RAM/SSD max'ed out, for a good price: a single machine that will support many simultaneous users.  Network not required.

I'm struggling to think why exactly you'd want it. Probably good for 
Apple shops, the same type that would also buy OS X Server in a 19" 
rack. Buy what you know and don't fiddle around with complex set-ups 
and/or virtualisation.

Total cost of ownership would likely be lower than of eight individual 
machines with a comparable performance for each user. On the other hand, 
you create a single point of failure, and a lot of cable mess (unless 
you connect the mouse and keyboard to the monitor).

> Now, I know we've been able to do this with Linux (and its somehow possible with M$), but I think whats interesting is that Apple are up'ing the game on what constitutes the boundaries of 'the Desktop', which is clearly not yet a levelled playing ground.

It's going to be a niche device, but Apple are comfortable in the niche 
market, and they'll probably make a bundle out of it, like they make a 
bundle out of everything they do these days.

> So maybe you M$ guys know whether Win8 supports this feature: one PC, 4 graphics cards, 8 monitors, 8 keyboards, 8 mice, independent login sessions, one computer, full 3d acceleration at each user?

Given that PCs are comparatively dirt-cheap, and that the average PC 
user does not need a great deal of processing power, there's probably no 
market for it. I'm sure that Windows could support it, that it does not 
support it, and that it will not support it because of Microsoft's 
irritating licensing schemes.

> Because I think that is the future of the Mac Pro, personally .. oh, there will always be the lone-wolf 'need-all-the-cpu-for-Me' use cases too, just that for the small office/business case, one machine and easy setup is a bit of a nice value proposition ..

To me it sounds more like an experiment that accidentally made it into 
production. "Let's see what people think; it won't hurt anyway."

We have a bit different set-up at work. Everybody has a laptop (except 
the software developers, but that will change in the next few weeks). In 
the morning, you walk to your personal drawer, take out your keyboard 
and mouse, stick your laptop into a docking station, and start working. 
There are no fixed desks, except for the CEO (and the software 
developers). You can sit anywhere you like, and it's one big open plan 
office.

On the one hand, it's cool that you just get up, walk a few metres, and 
talk to someone if you need information or help. On the other hand, you 
never know where somebody is sitting today. :-)






We also don't have phones: either you use your mobile, or a headset. 
Office Communicator/Link has become your phone.

Practically all of our servers are virtual. The next step is to get some 
fancy fail-over software for web services, web applications and such, 
and set up Oracle in such a way that you get automatic fast fail-over 
from one node to the other.

Obviously, our requirements are way ahead of what the average Mac Pro 
user would need. Still, if you ask me how the desktop will look like in 
a couple of years time, you'll have dumb terminals (perhaps with 
graphics acceleration) in which you stick your smartphone or tablet. If 
you consider the processing power of my Galaxy S3, which happily plays 
HD video as well... I see these as what will eventually kill the laptop.

Why, even today you could take a Raspberry Pi, hook up some peripherals, 
and connect a smartphone. Put your data in the smartphone, or the cloud, 
or both, and have it do the processing. To me, that's how the desktop 
will develop.

On the other hand, I also predicted that the iPhone wouldn't be much of 
a success, so you may take my opinion with a grain of salt. :-)

- Peter