[action]

hi gang,

after reading the transcripts of apple's quaterly earnings report, my worst fears have come to pass.

the sale of the powermac and powerbook numbers are awful. they are all down, while everything else is up. this might not mean anything for the overall health of the company but on a selfish level, i need the power cpu's for my work and might have to switch over to pc for my work equipment.

the power cpu's seem like they are on a yearly update cycle with attention to everything else. this new update cycle is painful to watch. i hope xgrid will solve my problems and i can just add more g5's as needed for rendering needs. if that's the case then the powerbook is the only thing without a real solution.

just some thoughts.

chung lee

[MORT A POTTY]

Apple really needs to get their **** together in the pro hardware.

Powerbooks are getting more lackluster every day, PowerMacs need more PCI slots, PCIE graphics, more HDs, another optical drive... and that's just to catch up with the rest of the industry. a lower pricepoint would be nice, but too much to ask.

[MartiNZ]

The figures released sure were interesting. I think the main problems at the moment lie with the fact that the pro line, especially the PowerBooks, is no longer that far ahead of the consumer - in fact it's more like the iBooks are being deprived of features just to keep the gap. And I have the feeling the G5 iMac will extend on that feeling, especially with the fact that it comes with a display that would otherwise mean $1 or 2K more on top of the huge pro line prices....

[Busemann]

Originally posted by MORT A POTTY:
PowerMacs need more PCI slots, PCIE graphics, more HDs, another optical drive...

IMHO, it doesn't need any of that except PCIe (which really isn't necessary either now that X800 is available for 8X agp.)

[mamamia]

I agree with the assessment that the Powermac sales are lagging, but I don't understand how that affects your situation. Are the dual 2.5ghz Powermacs enough for you're needs? If so, then buy them. If not, then don't. But I fail to see how their overall sales volume being either high or low impacts how well apple's solution works for you.

On the bright side, at least the low sales should spur apple to do everything they can to update the machines (as if they weren't already). the Pmacs have the highest profit margins, so you know they want those sales numbers higher. The rumors are that they will be coming out with dual 3.0 ghz, then moving to dual dual (quad) G5s after that. don't know if you can hang on till then, but should be an interesting ride getting htere.

Originally posted by action:
hi gang,

after reading the transcripts of apple's quaterly earnings report, my worst fears have come to pass.

the sale of the powermac and powerbook numbers are awful. they are all down, while everything else is up. this might not mean anything for the overall health of the company but on a selfish level, i need the power cpu's for my work and might have to switch over to pc for my work equipment.

the power cpu's seem like they are on a yearly update cycle with attention to everything else. this new update cycle is painful to watch. i hope xgrid will solve my problems and i can just add more g5's as needed for rendering needs. if that's the case then the powerbook is the only thing without a real solution.

just some thoughts.

chung lee

[action]

as my business has been expanding i have been buying more powermac g5's. having a faster product cycle then a year would do two things, make existing speeds less expensive or allows me to get faster machines.

when the 2.5's came out, i was able to upgrade to refurb 2.0's at $2000. after upgrading the ram and video card it was close to $3000. i would not been able to afford as many of these machines if not for the price drop due to refurb and having faster cpu's come out.

i'm at the point it's not becoming as cost effective for me to keep adding machines, due to space and software licenseing, i would rather upgrade to faster one's. at 2.5 it's not worth the hassle or cost of swapping out the 2.0's i would upgrade at 3.0. i was counting on this when i origianlly ordered the 2.0s. now that's at least a year late and i'm very skeptical we will see it in 2005.

chung lee

[P]

Ah, but this is a problem for the entire industry. Intel hasn't been doing so well recently, and the speed increases after the 3.2 GHz Northwood have been minuscule - 600 MHz more paid for with a much longer pipeline. AMD is doing better, but not really any better than IBM/Apple.

The Powerbooks are a worse problem. The Pentium M is a better mobile CPU than the Pentium 4 derivatives, and the G4 is getting a run for its money. With the comments from Apple about a Powerbook G5 being far off, I think we'll see G4-based (and e600-based, call it G4+) portables for some time yet. If we could get them with an on-chip DDR memory controller, that would do wonders for mobile performance.

[awcopus]

Originally posted by action:
as my business has been expanding i have been buying more powermac g5's. having a faster product cycle then a year would do two things, make existing speeds less expensive or allows me to get faster machines.

when the 2.5's came out, i was able to upgrade to refurb 2.0's at $2000. after upgrading the ram and video card it was close to $3000. i would not been able to afford as many of these machines if not for the price drop due to refurb and having faster cpu's come out.

i'm at the point it's not becoming as cost effective for me to keep adding machines, due to space and software licenseing, i would rather upgrade to faster one's. at 2.5 it's not worth the hassle or cost of swapping out the 2.0's i would upgrade at 3.0. i was counting on this when i origianlly ordered the 2.0s. now that's at least a year late and i'm very skeptical we will see it in 2005.

chung lee

In what business is one eager to spend more money on capital? I'm in the video business. I upgraded from a dual 1.42 G4 to a dual 2.5 last Fall. Total cost, with 6 GB RAM and an external Macgurus enclosure with 4 additional 300GB scratch discs plus the Sonnet SATA card to run it, and an X800 upgrade... has been significant. But I made the upgrade knowing that this machine would give me pretty solid performance for at least 2 and probably 3 years.

When you buy an Apple pro CPU, do you actually expect to pay to upgrade it within a year? Seems imprudent unless you have a ton of capital and the marginal increases in performance are directly relevant to your profitability. In which case you are in a very exclusive minority.

Like others, I look forward to Apple's next pro-hardware (r)evolution, which I am sure will come once IBM solves some stick manuf. problems with the G5.

[action]

my trade is photography. you can check out some of my work at www.chunglee.com

i was on a 933 quicksilver and i was fully productive with this machine. as my photography business grew i added more machines but was able to purchase dual machines for the same price as my original 933 quicksilver.

i have started to dabble in video and that mushroomed in a thriving business. i have turned into a production facility which i originally did not want to be but at the moment it is keeping me interested.

i'm doing video editing and motion graphics. for what i'm doing the render times are very long even for a dual 2.0. because of this i have added more g5's so other work can be done while one machine is rendering a particular piece of graphics. to save the client time we render a couple of different versions of a particular graphic.

instead of adding more machines and more staff, i would rather have faster machines and do more work per machine. i am exploring the option of adding xserves and building a render farm as well as other options to include using pc's.

i haven't done a cost benefit analysis regarding my hardware but i am at a saturation point and can't take on any more clients. it is a small business and my studio is about at it's limit in regards to personel and equipment.

so having faster machines would allow me to keep my staff constant but increase my work load.

chung

[awcopus]

Originally posted by action:
my trade is photography. you can check out some of my work at www.chunglee.com

i was on a 933 quicksilver and i was fully productive with this machine. as my photography business grew i added more machines but was able to purchase dual machines for the same price as my original 933 quicksilver.

i have started to dabble in video and that mushroomed in a thriving business. i have turned into a production facility which i originally did not want to be but at the moment it is keeping me interested.

i'm doing video editing and motion graphics. for what i'm doing the render times are very long even for a dual 2.0. because of this i have added more g5's so other work can be done while one machine is rendering a particular piece of graphics. to save the client time we render a couple of different versions of a particular graphic.

instead of adding more machines and more staff, i would rather have faster machines and do more work per machine. i am exploring the option of adding xserves and building a render farm as well as other options to include using pc's.

i haven't done a cost benefit analysis regarding my hardware but i am at a saturation point and can't take on any more clients. it is a small business and my studio is about at it's limit in regards to personel and equipment.

so having faster machines would allow me to keep my staff constant but increase my work load.

chung

Or you can save money on capital expenses that are costly and depreciate dramatically by (1) leasing additional powermacs (especially if you need them always to be bleeding edge, you can save plenty of money this way) and (2) start developing a network of talented people to whom you can outsource work.

You are a bit further down this road than I am, but I am headed there and thinking about the same issues. Private message me if you'd like to discuss this more as it is a tangent from the thread.

[MORT A POTTY]

dual 2.3Ghz XServe cluser nodes

[Superchicken]

I think Apple kinda sold everyone who was holding out on the 2Ghz Dualies a while ago. And of course dual 2.5s aren't going to be that much of an increase so it's understandable that the numbers are low. Most of the pros that needed have bought. That said, once they jump to 3Ghz you'll probably see another jump in sales.

[MORT A POTTY]

Originally posted by Superchicken:
I think Apple kinda sold everyone who was holding out on the 2Ghz Dualies a while ago. And of course dual 2.5s aren't going to be that much of an increase so it's understandable that the numbers are low. Most of the pros that needed have bought. That said, once they jump to 3Ghz you'll probably see another jump in sales.

really? 2.0 compared to 2.5 isn't that big of a jump? that's 25% more free!

[jtice]

Originally posted by action:
instead of adding more machines and more staff, i would rather have faster machines and do more work per machine. i am exploring the option of adding xserves and building a render farm as well as other options to include using pc's.

I just can't see an incremental increase in CPU speed being much benefit. Doubling the number of boxes is 100% productivity increase with no downtime, upgrading all the machines is an incremental increase, less who knows how much downtime. The place where money is really flowing in the wrong direction is when clients have to go elsewhere, in which case they will be serviced on additional machines, with additional personnel.