If this MO is a non-negotiable, then Apple really made the mistake when they acquired Shake.
Production studio workflows built on Shake were all Linux-based, and there was no way that was going to change, regardless of the price. Apple tried to lure then with increasingly lower prices for the MacOS version of Shake, but it had few takers, even with new features and Final Cut Pro integration.
So Shake (which was still primarily a Linux product) became a liability for Apple, because continued support of it didn't align with Apple corporate's priorities -- because it wasn't really a Mac OS X product that would increase Mac OS X's platform value as long as they had to also support Linux/IRIX.
Just my guesses ... there was likely significantly more nuance involved than what I detailed above.