Why did Nvidia lose the Apple MacPro line?

Analysis: How much is that halo in the window, the one with the professional cards?

Dec 30, 2013 by

Nvidia logoNvidia lost the new MacPro deal mainly because of pricing, but the bigger issue is why they didn’t beat AMD for this halo. Nvidia routinely gives away tens of thousands of cards to ‘win’ supercomputer deals, so why not shave a few points off the price and win the cherry on top?

The MacPro is likely the largest selling ‘workstation’ out there so this loss will be pretty painful to Nvidia’s numbers, all the more so because it is only the ‘premium’ version of the professional cards. More confusing is the fact that Nividia is the dominant player in the professional and compute GPU markets, although that is changing rapidly. With the market trends not favoring them, why risk the public opinion hit?

Over the past two years, AMD has increased their share of the professional graphics market by about 10% while Intel is taking far more on the compute side in less time. With the market slip sliding away, why would any sane marketer not try to win both a lot of market share and possibly the highest profile workstation win? Why would any company give up such a lucrative market?

Note: The following is for professional and student level subscribers.

Disclosures: Charlie Demerjian and Stone Arch Networking Services, Inc. have no consulting relationships, investment relationships, or hold any investment positions with any of the companies mentioned in this report.

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Charlie Demerjian

Roving engine of chaos and snide remarks at SemiAccurate
Charlie Demerjian is the founder of Stone Arch Networking Services and SemiAccurate.com. SemiAccurate.com is a technology news site; addressing hardware design, software selection, customization, securing and maintenance, with over one million views per month. He is a technologist and analyst specializing in semiconductors, system and network architecture. As head writer of SemiAccurate.com, he regularly advises writers, analysts, and industry executives on technical matters and long lead industry trends. Charlie is also available through Guidepoint and Mosaic. FullyAccurate