"We have data centers with thousands of machines configured with all 3 OS’s running constant build and test operations 24 hours a day 365 days a year. This is just a small look at the Mac side of things."

Seems safe to say this is not a small company

Any Mac hardware will do like Mini's, xServes, and Mac Pros. Mac Pro's work really well and if you just rent them from a data center, the capital expenditure isn't there so you don't get hit with the $3k price tag.

Without knowing what product is being testing, how can you say that "Any Mac hardware will do"? Like I said - if they're wanting to test on the specific hardware that their customers are running the software on, you can't know that for sure. A Mac Mini has a different CPU/GPU to an XServe, likewise a Mac Pro, likewise a Macbook Pro.

Sorry to offend; I was referencing the "We require Mac OS X" part more liberally. It looks like this author could use any hardware as long as they had HDMI enablers to enable the GPU's in headless servers like the Xserve and Mac Pro.

I don't think they're opening up each row of MacBook Pro's continuously for they're software though. I think they've just got the lids open to make sure the GPU is enabled for better performance in remote sessions.

There are ways around the lid opening thing as far as activating the GPU (same issue applies to Minis and Pros that have no monitor attached in a datacenter environment).

The big requirement for keeping the lid open is probably to control the temperature. You can run a MBP with the lid closed, but it will get pretty toasty, and these aren't being used for a typical laptop workload one presumes.