The Mac Pro Is Apple's Corvette
It’s arguable that the Mac Pro deserves the most prominent spot at Apple’s event this Thursday. Even though it’s a small slice of the revenue pie, it’s a big part of the prestige pie. When Apple introduced the Mac Pro three years ago, I was encouraged at how it looked like Apple was doubling down on their top-of-the-line Mac and turning it into an engineering masterpiece in the same vein as world class automakers with their super cars.
Automakers have long subscribed to the school of thought that says if you want to be considered world class, it helps to have a show piece. A halo product that showcases your design and engineering prowess. Acura has their NSX, Chevrolet the Corvette, Nissan the GTR, and so on. These cars employ the latest technology that their best engineers could create and are often a vision of where the rest of the lineup is headed in the future. And they are also typically low-volume and high-cost product lines.
But you can’t measure the financial return on these halo products simply by looking at their product-line income statement. Dodge famously admitted that the Viper was a perennial money loser. There’s no good way to quantify the goodwill generated by these lust inducing machines. When impressionable young future car buyers are in the part of their life where they are noticing who makes cool cars, they aren’t buying spiral notebooks with a Chevy Malibus on them.
Even though it’s low volume, I’d like to see Apple keep the Mac Pro at the pinnacle of what’s possible with a personal computer. It should be the ultimate movie-making machine that could also handle the most intense games without even working hard. When arguments break out among the technorati about who makes the best machines, the Mac Pro needs to be exhibit A. And if it barely breaks even or even loses some money, so be it. It’s a marketing expense.
Since it’s been three years since Apple wowed the world with their current Mac Pro, I’m not sure Apple is still committed to having a halo product. Has Apple decided that this small market isn’t worth the hassle? Though the Mac Pro “should” get top billing, I didn’t say it would.
In fairness to Apple, due to the ambiguous financial case, halo products are often internally divisive issues even for auto makers. The book All Corvettes Are Red details how GM famously decided to kill the Corvette during the eighties and some rogue product engineers secretly kept it alive in the basement. This was one of those periods where the Corvette hadn’t been updated in many years.
I’m guessing Apple may have went through a similar turbulent period with whether or not to invest in the Mac Pro. I suppose we’ll find out this Thursday which side won.
But you can’t measure the financial return on these halo products simply by looking at their product-line income statement. Dodge famously admitted that the Viper was a perennial money loser. There’s no good way to quantify the goodwill generated by these lust inducing machines. When impressionable young future car buyers are in the part of their life where they are noticing who makes cool cars, they aren’t buying spiral notebooks with a Chevy Malibus on them.
Even though it’s low volume, I’d like to see Apple keep the Mac Pro at the pinnacle of what’s possible with a personal computer. It should be the ultimate movie-making machine that could also handle the most intense games without even working hard. When arguments break out among the technorati about who makes the best machines, the Mac Pro needs to be exhibit A. And if it barely breaks even or even loses some money, so be it. It’s a marketing expense.
Since it’s been three years since Apple wowed the world with their current Mac Pro, I’m not sure Apple is still committed to having a halo product. Has Apple decided that this small market isn’t worth the hassle? Though the Mac Pro “should” get top billing, I didn’t say it would.
In fairness to Apple, due to the ambiguous financial case, halo products are often internally divisive issues even for auto makers. The book All Corvettes Are Red details how GM famously decided to kill the Corvette during the eighties and some rogue product engineers secretly kept it alive in the basement. This was one of those periods where the Corvette hadn’t been updated in many years.
I’m guessing Apple may have went through a similar turbulent period with whether or not to invest in the Mac Pro. I suppose we’ll find out this Thursday which side won.
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