I am really curious to know about the OS demographics of the Houdini user base. Apple looks like they have completely abandoned their pro users so I was wondering about the share of MacOSX users compared to the Windows and Linux users of Houdini. I would expect that most of the corporate licenses would be Linux based and small studios and freelancers would use a lot of Windows licenses. So who still uses MacOSX licenses and is it still viable for SideFX to keep supporting the platform ? Any opinions, feedback, hard facts would be appreciated.

SESI could give you here the best feedback!

when you read the comments from the developers you find that SESI wants to have a open system that should not lock to one company(example: nvidia -> cuda). so i don't think they will stop support osx the heavy effort have been done some time ago now it's just the opengl stuff that makes the most trouble.

easy rule in my point of view:
1. target: massive setups and your targets are the system limits -> linux
2. target: you are in a mix setup with a lot of tools -> windows
3. target: learning / testing / teaching houdini -> mac osx / windows / linux

I don't know the stats either, but like mandrake's succinct assessment.

I'll continue to use MacOS as a primary design platform as long as it stays viable. But it would be a shame for Side Effects to hamper Houdini's development progress on account of limping, creaky systems that even Apple isn't interested in anymore.

mandrake0
SESI could give you here the best feedback!
3. target: learning / testing / teaching houdini -> mac osx / windows / linux

This makes perfect sense. A lot of students, instructors, academic staff are using Mac laptops and so it makes sense that SESI would keep developing the OSX version on this account alone. I doubt that anyone would use an Apple computer in production considering the current state of OpenGL drivers and zero care from Apple.