[rayiner]

Let's not forget that long before Apple exited the "Pro" market, companies like SGI went out of business. So did all the companies that used to make graphics hardware targeted to pros. They were overwhelmed by ATI and NVIDIA's repurposed gaming GPUs.

[iampliny]

Yep. Tricked-out gaming rigs catching up with the heavy-iron graphics workstations was hugely disruptive. Low-overhead boutiques could suddenly do the same work as high-overhead facilities. But then you blinked, and the same work was happening in no-overhead places like The Director's Living Room.