In reverse order:
Originally Posted by
cordelli
If people need a DVD they should (and do) have the option to buy one. ... You may have no need for DVD, but some others may still want to use them. Certainly less machines will ship with them, but that doesn't mean they are dead.
This I agree with fully. No matter how much I dislike them, DVDs are far from dead and it will be quite some time before they are fully gone. People will, thus, still have a need for them just like I still have a need for 3.5" floppy disks and, as a result, used to carry around a 3.5" USB floppy drive.
Getting rid of the drive as a standard option is, I think, a good choice especially since it should be easy to just set up (or for most people buy) a network DVD drive that, let's say, mounts as a standard drive across the network and can be accessed via DLNA. I may even pay cash money for something like that, if it's reliable, small, and supports CIFS and DLNA together.
I do quite like this idea that you can buy components that work together across a local network, and a standalone DVD drive (with or without writing capacity) is probably a valuable addition to that.
Originally Posted by
cordelli
Should the location they were being shown at be required to change all their equipment because Apple says they don't need DVD's anymore?
Given that it's Apple, yes. All the locations should just buy new hardware that can support it.