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Apple To Discontinue Xserve
Toe, The writes "Apple has announced that they are discontinuing their line of 1u rack-mount servers. With their usual understated style, the announcement comes in the form of a box on their website and a transition guide (PDF) to their low-end Mac mini server or their now-more-powerful-than-Xserve Mac Pro server. Attitudes about the Xserve have ranged from considering it a token nod to enterprise to an underpowered wimp to a tremendous value. Apparently, the migration to Intel processors removed some of the value of clustering Xserves, leaving them somewhat overpriced compared to other, more traditional offerings. The odd thing is that Apple clearly has shown they have the capacity for enterprise, but rarely the will to take it on. So, does the discontinuation of their rack-mount mean they have abandoned enterprise for their post-PC offerings, or are they simply acknowledging that their products aren't gaining traction in the data center? Or do they have something else up their sleeve for next year?"
It was the only way to look like a trendy douchebag in a datacentre setting.
It would never dawn on me to use a Mac for anything other than the desktop. While I'm sure that they make perfectly capable server products, I would wager that the perception that Apple is primarily suited for making products that target the end user rather than the enterprise is a substantial hurdle for Apple. Frankly, I think that this is one of the hurdles that keeps Linux from being as widely adopted as a desktop platform. People hear *nix and, if they think anything at all, they think "server."
Social Engineering Expert: Because there is no patch for stupidity.
OS X Lion Server will introduce the new "Lion's Share," and a new blade server appliance into which you can mount 9 Mac Mini's each with app store instant Lions Share server installs. Want AFP? Install Lion's Share AFP app on the mini. Want DNS? Install app store DNS app on another Mini! Roar! with Lion's Share!
Apple are dropping Xserve and Ubuntu is dropping X-Server
Your move Microsoft...
Summation 2
Xserve aside, OS X Server provides some very, very powerful tools. Many of them are based on open-source, but for the ~$1K price, a well-paid employee would be hard pressed to roll them all in less than $1K worth of time. And all these tools have no per-seat cost, unlike Microsoft solutions.
The question remains, of course, how seriously can people take OS X Server now that apple discontinued the Xserve?
OTOH, it makes a really nice home server, if it is a bit over-powered and pricey for that application.
I think the only people who got these things were Mac Fanboys. Don't get me wrong, I like Mac. But I would never have recommended Apple Servers in a business settings.
1. You are stuck on one platform. It is like getting a Sun Solaris platform but worse because apple never really had a strong enterprise department.
2. You didn't get any real extra functionality over a Linux/BSD even Windows servers.
3. There is 0 fore-site on what will happen for the next version. What new features. Apple is too closed
4. You had limited options. So that means you are paying for stuff you don't need
5. Limited server tools. Sure the Apple stuff is good but you need that one extra tool that apple doesn't support.
Like Apple or Hate Apple, it really isn't a good server platform.
If something is so important that you feel the need to post it on the internet... It probably isn't that important.
Well I guess that answers the question about what *didn't* go in that big new data center.
In a previous life several years ago we looked at buying 300 of them to run Yellow Dog (yes, several years). They were nicely engineered units, but Apple clearly wasn't series about enterprise sales. They offered a kit of spare parts for field replacements, but not much beyond that.
Starting an offensive statement with "no offense" doesn't make it less offensive. :p
(not that I'm offended)
Remember to maintain your supply of
The Xserve has been largely redundant since Apple discontinued the Xraid. When you pair them up they make great file servers, the publishing company I used to work for loved them (yup, that's right, there *are* people for whom Apple servers make sense, go home haters).
Seeing as how there's nothing you can do with an Xserve that you can't do with a Mac Pro, the only difference is the rackmounting. Considering the way forward is Xsan, that's completely optional now even if all your storage is rackmounted. The SAN controller can be on the other side of the building as long as your fibre reaches it.
Nice as it was, goodbye redundant product. You'll be missed, but not for long.
Apple's hardware support was abysmal for their servers. And by support, I'm not talking about drivers, I'm talking about their ability to fix a broken system.
I've called Apple to get parts for failed Xserves, and they have taken WEEKS to ship for systems covered under applecare. They also think it's entirely fine to tell you to bring an Xserve in to an authorized repair center. I mean, *what?*
Just because a server is available in a 1U form factor doesn't mean it's an enterprise system. You can't support enterprise hardware the same way you support iPods.
The move would make sense if Apple were a car company(ha! car metaphor ftw!) Discontinuing one line of a car company's models has almost 0 effect on the other model that company makes. However in computing, esp. with a company like Apple, it's actually a different beast. While the XServe may not have had many sales by itself, it really was an enabler for companies to move more stuff towards the mac(and by extension iOS devices). Apple's biggest strength really has been that they are a one stop shop for your entire computing ecosystem. You can move your company to Apple, and while you will pay a little bit more for the hardware, the fact that Apple has designed the whole ecosystem(hardware, software etc) to work with eachother means that you will save money and time when it comes to support. However recently with the discontinuation of Java and now the XServe Apple is really saying, "We are a gizmo company. We make other stuff, but if it isn't gizmo related we really don't care'
The knock-on effects of this decision are going to be pretty bad for Apple. Apple was finally making inroads in the enterprise, only to do something as stupid as this. Not only that, companies now have 0 faith in the future of Apple. They have shown time and again that they have 0 problems discontinuing product lines/platforms on a whim. How is a developer supposed to plan anything when Apple can just cancel it? Are we really supposed to put our reputation with our customers(which translates into our livelihoods in a lot of circumstances) in Steve's hands when he has shown 0 qualms about discontinuing products at a moments notice? You can bet that any sysadmin/architect who convinced their boss to buy XServes in the past couple months is so is worried sick about how said boss will interpret this news. And you can be sure as shit that said sysadmin won't be nearly as enthusiastic about Apple products in the future. I know I'm not.
Steve is destroying the very thing that made him big in the first place, and I wonder how much longer Apple will even be around. They seem to be putting all their eggs in the consumer products basket, and there is a long line of companies that don't exist or are a shell of their former selves who went down that exact same road. AAPL will be at 0 before decades end unless someone stops Steve, and probably even if they do. I'm waiting until WWDC when Apple reveals Lion to short AAPL big time.
Monstar L
IBM - Market cap of $182 Billion with $23.7 billion quarterly revenue
Apple - Market cap of $291 Billion with $20.3 billion quarterly revenue
I really did like Time Machine for ease of use, but I will find something for Linux, or create my own based around rsync.
Having had problems sorting a Time Machine replacement out under Linux, I installed FreeNAS on a spare box - just add and configure the drives, select the option to run a Time Machine server, and you're away - I was very impressed with the ease of use.
This has always, always been the Apple way. For better AND worse, Apple is a "We do what we want," kind of company. They set their own path, decide what they think the market REALLY wants, and so on. This has good sides, it leads to them trying new things that other companies wouldn't and ignoring some conventional wisdom. That has lead to some extremely popular products in the consumer electronics space. However the bad side is that they do not consider the needs of their partners, and their clients, in enterprise. They'll change their mind on how shit is done, not tell you first, not give you a migration strategy, and that is that.
Two good somewhat recent examples would be the move to Intel hardware and the discontinuation of the 64-bit Carbon API. In the case of the Intel transition, everything was kept heavily under wraps. They admitted after it was done that they'd been working on it for years, even using OS-X on Intel in demonstrations, however it was all kept very hush hush. Suddenly PPC was no longer available and it was all Intel. So if you were heavily invested in PPC hardware, well fuck you. In the case of 64-bit Carbon they said it'd be supported, provided beta APIs and so on, and companies like Adobe were using it. Then they suddenly said "Nah, changed our mind, you have to use Cocoa," leaving companies like Adobe in a lurch.
Apple has never taken enterprise support seriously, their mentality is just not aligned with it. They want to be able to change everything, do what they think is cool at the time and so on. It has worked wonderfully for them in the consumer electronics space, but that is NOT what is needed in the enterprise world.
Well, perhaps businesses will understand that, and understand that going all Mac has problems because of that. Apple may pay lip service to the business market, but it isn't what they are good at doing. They can and will change their minds on how things are done on no notice and leave you to deal with the results.
Not at all, it means that the market for companies that have racks and want to run OS X Server is small. Now they have the Mac Mini Server, they have a product that can go into small offices that don't have somewhere for a rack-mounted system.
The XServe was never a product that Apple created to sell. They created it because they have a lot of data centres of their own (to drive their site, the QuickTime Movie Trailers hosting, Apple Store, iTunes Store, and so on) and they didn't want to be buying a load of servers from a competitor to run them. They sold it because, having already designed and built it for un-house use there was no reason not to, but the potential market for a rack-mounted OS X box was small enough that it wouldn't have been worth their while designing it just for sale.
So what does this announcement actually mean? That they are no longer planning on using XServes in their own data centres. My guess is that they're planning on having their ARM team design a Cortex A15 SoC with ethernet, crypto hardware, and SATA on die and make tiny blade servers for internal use. They almost certainly won't want to ship OS X Server for ARM for external use, because supporting another architecture would be a lot of effort for little return, but they might do if the market looks big enough.
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Yes, they have something else up their sleeve. Did anybody notice Apple's "enterprise services agreement" with Unisys? http://www.eweek.com/c/a/Mobile-and-Wireless/Apple-Unisys-Agree-to-Enterprise-Services-Deal-Report-788654/ Did anybody notice the 54% drop in Unisys's profits, along with a drop in server sales? http://finance.yahoo.com/news/Unisys-3Q-profit-sinks-54-pct-apf-3818156357.html?x=0&.v=1 So, Unisys is an enterprise computing company looking for a way to save its server business. Apple is consumer electronics company with enterprise ambitions, enterprise software, but no enterprise distribution network. Apple just announced it is dropping its server hardware line, a little over a week after announcing the deal with Unisys. I know it is fashionable to dismiss Apple's enterprise computing ambitions. I was at an Apple Developer's seminar a couple years ago where they were showing off the new version (then) of MacOS X Server. The entire focus of that seminar was on how Apple was adding features to MacOS X Server (and even licensing things from Microsoft) to make OS X Server more suitable for the enterprise. I predict Unisys will start offering MacOS X Server on Unisys server hardware soon. Apple may even end up buying Unisys.
Actually, I think the previous post is probably right, at least in the long run.
If there's one thing the popularity of iPhone/iPad had demonstrated, it's that most people don't really use their computers much. They have a hugely capable desktop machine that they use for "facebook", email, and "youtube", and that's about it for most of them.
I'm a pretty hardcore penguinista myself, but even I doubt that a standard full-service (by today's "PC" standards) Linux desktop will ever conquer the market, or even a large minority of it. However, I think the current "desktop" market is mostly doomed outside of "enterprise" and hardcore power-user settings. Now that "consumer" gadgets have gotten cheap and powerful enough to do what the great majority of "users" seem to do with their computers, there's no need for it any more. All those people who are "completely befuddled when they don't see the start button" will be migrating their way over to even-simpler environments like Android and iOS and perhaps Windows 7 Series 7 Phone 7 Series (or whatever they were calling it), which I actually kind of expect will cannibalize BlackBerry for corporate users.
My personal prediction: Microsoft is busy fossilizing into the New IBM (firmly embedded in many "corporate" environments but fading out of the "consumer" market), while Apple clamps down on its users and gets increasingly ruthless with its market control to become the New Microsoft. I expect Linux to grow solidly on the internet server side and on corporate servers.
I actually expect the Android/Apple landscape in the "consumer" side to end up looking a lot like the Microsoft/Apple market now - I'm guessing we'll end up with a solid majority made up of various Android devices, with Apple being a minority (but a relatively large and reliable one).
There, a free wild prediction, and you didn't even have to look at ads on ZDNet or some other commercial publication to get it.
tl;dr: Yes, I agree that Microsoft will likely hold onto the "traditional desktop" market for as long as that market stays around, but I don't think that market is going to exist for that much longer now.
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Why does everyone think Apple stopped making servers? They just stopped making xserves.
That's a whole lot of speculation.
The way I remember it, Apple sold a lot of Xserves into media environments, for digital video processing, basic file storage, etc. Musicians and A/V professionals have a natural affinity for Macs and little interest in maintaining servers, so a plug-and-play server that worked with their Macs was a natural choice. Unfortunately, it's not a particularly large market.
Xserves were nice machines, but building and maintaining bulletproof server hardware -- including continually producing new models that keep up with the ongoing upgrade cycles from Intel and other component vendors -- just doesn't make sense if the products aren't competitive in the market. And Apple's servers weren't going to be competitive until it started shipping models with Linux and/or Windows Server as an option. Instead, Apple tried to be Sun and found out it simply didn't have the expertise and market savvy to be Sun -- and then, look what happened to Sun.
They almost certainly won't want to ship OS X Server for ARM for external use, because supporting another architecture would be a lot of effort for little return, but they might do if the market looks big enough.
So they're going to use it exclusively in-house, to the extent that they're going to replace all their Xserves, but they don't have enough faith in the ARM port to sell it? Just the fact that they put it into production use in-house means they'd have to "support" it. I think you're reaching.
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