And, just like every Unix workstation vendor of the 1990s, they got hit with a perfect storm. They had their hardware being disrupted by x86 really coming into its own as a viable option for higher-end computing at the exact same time that Linux was becoming a serious option for the operating system.
"Literally something that should not exist" is the perfect way of putting it. In 1990, lots of people needed boutique workstation vendors. In 2000, nobody did.
It's worse than that. Instead of "nobody" it was conservative slow moving vendor locked clients that could convince you to keep selling at those prices ("look at the margins!") instead of focusing on alternatives. I remember $5,000+ PCs being considered "cheap" workstations when those clients finally migrated.
Even Apple, which became the unlikely last of the Unix workstation vendors, was disrupted by Intel (and moved from PowerPC to x86 for a while). Ironically, Apple is now the very last Unix workstation vendor in existence.
Yes, although they have clearly not always been committed to the Mac Pro over the years, it still exists and the pricing is certainly workstation like.
They are also well-established in certain markets like video and music production. And using their own silicon gives them some nice features like unified memory and power efficiency (and some not-so-nice features like lower system memory limits and non-expandability.) Apple also has some experience with AI, and hardware acceleration, so perhaps they will weather (or surf) the AI wave.
Apple abandoned both intel and Nvidia (not to mention AMD/ATI) which is interesting. Apple seems to be vertically integrated like IBM or SGI - but better at differentiation and at locking in new customers.
Apple seems particularly good at differentiated product design; their devices often just look better than the competition and seem to offer a better user experience.
(That being said, SGI's designs look pretty cool too.)
"Literally something that should not exist" is the perfect way of putting it. In 1990, lots of people needed boutique workstation vendors. In 2000, nobody did.