[dschuetz]

I wonder why there still isn't a company making highest quality products like Apple once did, while not being a total dick about customer support?

The machine seemed to work fine, despite its age. Why this smugness "Why don't you upgrade to/buy a newer inferior more expensive product which doesn't suit your needs at all?"?

Is a product obsolete as soon there is a newer product? Where is the line between products which provide infrastructure services and interchangeable consumer products?

[feikname]

Those aren't hardware-focused companies, but I'd say Adobe and Autodesk do quite well on maintaining high quality products (and, like Apple does, being pricey)

[eastWestMath]

As someone else pointed out, the deprecation of AFP was announced over 4 years ago, 8 years into this servers lifespan (it’s a 2006 model, right?). This was a problem their network administrator should have been aware of for 4 years, that’s probably enough time to figure out a solution!

[idorube]

I agree, as a video archivist, we support a lot of technologies that are much older than most computer systems. e.g. uMatic, half inch tape, BetaSP, Film etc. Albeit daunting, there is a slower decline in support for these machines.

[eastWestMath]

Someone else pointed out that Apple announced the deprecation of AFP 4 years ago - it’s a bit unfair to say Apple caught you off guard here.

[dreamcompiler]

> Is a product obsolete as soon there is a newer product?

If it's an Apple product, yes. Apple only makes money when they sell hardware. Several years ago they made a conscious business decision to quit supporting old hardware the way they once had because it didn't make money. Now the only purpose of Apple software is to push more hardware sales, which is why the MacOS and IOS upgrade cycles are so frequent, why there has been a continual decline in Apple software quality, and why you see things like the IOS battery scandal that slows down older devices.