Mac OSX is still solidly used in many industries, such as media and publishing. Recording studios need the Pro to install expansion cards, video production houses the same. I've seen close to riots because a production house wanted to move all their staff to Windows, and as much as you think it might save costs, you don't have to worry about Anti-Virus and Firewall software management, admin permissions etc on top of all that, Windows Pro licenses etc. Integration with iPad and iPhone is also important given that a lot of media development for these goes on in this studios.
I (still) work in old-world publishing. Honestly, Mac Pros are losing their edge in this industry. My machine was recently upgraded from an old Mac Pro to a new Mac Mini. Even when I spam my machine with a half-dozen Adobe apps at once, I don't really hurt for performance.
Granted, some still need a Mac Pro to drive multiple huge monitors, cut video, add weird device interfaces, etc. Some will demand super expensive hardware for reasons more political than practical. All that said, overall, the publishing industry seems to be hitting a performance-plateau where the old Pro is no longer necessary among many practitioners.
Right, I wonder if the Thunderbolt isn't going to replace the expansion cards in the future. As long as latency is as low there is no other reason I can think of to maintain expansion card chassis, and thus discontinue the Mac Pros for the Minis.
Flashback is the exception that proves the rule. As much as I like to disagree with people who suggest that the OS X is "fundamentally more secure than windows" (it really, really isn't) - it does tend to have many fewer active exploits than Windows Platforms do - and your average OS X system is much less likely to be loaded up with malware than your average Windows XP system.
Perhaps, but I find it unlikely that professional companies would let their workstations - Windows or OSX - get loaded with malware. In fact, I hardly encounter exploits or malware on PCs nowadays, and never at all in the few corporate environments I've been in.
No, Apple hasn't approached an AV vendor to help harden OSX. That was marketing FUD by Kaspersky that was later retracted. Kaspersky is conducting its own internal audit of OSX, and Apple has said that it would naturally be open to listening to any reports of vulnerabilities that Kaspersky might discover. This is far different than what was reported by computing.co.uk.
