Is Apple tired of the Tower?

The future of Apple's top-of-the-line Mac Pro could be in jeopardy, with the company reportedly questioning the viability of the tower PC in light of the move towards notebooks, tablets and smartphones.

According to a report on Apple Insider, although the Mac Pro line is due for a refresh, there is talk within Apple of not bothering with the release as the market is so small.

"Internal discussions were said to focus around the fact that sales of the high-end workstations to both consumers and enterprises have dropped off so considerably that the Mac Pro is no longer a particularly profitable operation for Apple," the report reads, citing people familiar with the matter.

The nail in the coffin could be the Thunderbolt high-speed connectivity technology, which the report says will allow other Apple devices to do many of the tasks once confined to the Mac Pro.

A few months ago HP announced it would look into completely divesting itself of its PC division, Personal Systems Group (PSG), due to flagging margins, although it has since retracted the idea.