Steve Jobs Reassured Customer Concerned for Mac OS X Server's Future

[MacRumors]

Yesterday, a report surfaced claiming that Apple is considering discontinuing some of its server-related offerings beyond the Xserve slated to disappear at the end of the month and suggesting that Mac OS X Server could eventually be cut from Apple's lineup. The rumors certainly generated significant interest and concern from those who are fans of Apple's server- and storage-related products.

The new report led one MacRumors reader to let us know that he had emailed Apple CEO Steve Jobs in early December specifically to inquire about whether Mac OS X Server might soon meet the same fate as the Xserve, and Jobs reportedly replied with a simple "no".

Q: If you are abandoning enterprise solutions by eliminating the Xserve, does that mean OS X Server is not far behind? It seems that way. I would hate to see that because I like the product.

A: No.

Sent from my iPhone

Jobs of course has a clever way of selectively addressing customer questions so as to not give away too much information, so readers should be careful of reading too much into his simple comment. His response could optimistically be taken to mean that Mac OS X Server's future is secure for the foreseeable future, although a more skeptical interpretation could be applied to suggest that Mac OS X Server may or may not be under consideration for discontinuation but that any discontinuation would be a bit further down the road and not "not far behind" the Xserve's demise.

Even that latter interpretation would be consistent with Hardmac's claims yesterday, which suggested that there would be a server version of Mac OS X Lion later this year but that it could eventually mark the end of the line for Apple's server operating system.

Article Link: Steve Jobs Reassured Customer Concerned for Mac OS X Server's Future

 

[RedTomato]

Wirelessly posted (This odd thing that I hold: Mozilla/5.0 (iPhone; U; CPU iPhone OS 3_1_3 like Mac OS X; en-us) AppleWebKit/528.18 (KHTML, like Gecko) Version/4.0 Mobile/7E18 Safari/528.16)

I personally see little future for OSX server. It doesn't even meet Apple's own needs. (Ding!)

The main market seems to be FCS, and while I don't know it very well, I could see it becoming an expensive application that runs on top of osx.

 

[Consultant]

Best 2 letters ever.

Unlikely for Apple to drop enterprise support, now more and more businesses are integrating iOS and Mac support.

 

[icloud]

If you could abbreviate the word 'no', I assure you Steve Jobs would.

 

[MindlessJD]

Apple would be shooting themselves in the foot by discontinuing OS X Server. I can't seem them doing that anytime soon.

Didn't they say the Mac Mini Server sells like hot cakes?

 

[jav6454]

Obviously it won't go away seeing as a Mac Pro is being offered as Server solution and even more so the cheaper Mac Mini is also being offered as server solution.

 

[nsayer]

It reminds me of the scene in Mel Brooks' Silent Movie where they asked Marcel Marceau to be in the movie and he ironically spoke his response.

 

[fox10078]

As good as this news is, The mans on medical leave and people can't leave him alone.

 

[RoboCop001]

Can't people email him solid questions that aren't open to interpretation? lol

 

[Mattsasa]

oh i loves steve's emails.

at-least he is feeling well enough to email

 

[JDiggity82]

Mac hardware nor Mac software have any place in todays datacenter, I have a number of Apple products and don't see a future where Mac OSX server will be driving any services in large scale environments. My thoughts...discontinue the product, maintain support, redirect resources to extend and support existing products and ventures.

Get well Steve!

-J

 

[alectheking]

As good as this news is, The mans on medical leave and people can't leave him alone.

If you read the article, it says the email is from early december.

 

[RedTomato]

Wirelessly posted (This odd thing that I hold: Mozilla/5.0 (iPhone; U; CPU iPhone OS 3_1_3 like Mac OS X; en-us) AppleWebKit/528.18 (KHTML, like Gecko) Version/4.0 Mobile/7E18 Safari/528.16)

OSX server lacks the enterprise and back end features that windows and unix have, and mac minis and mac pros don't fit into enterprise server rooms.

Apple maybe has been putting out tools that help enterprise deploy iOS on a windows / unix network. I only know of a couple but there are certainly more. Apple certainly have many more as they don't use osx server themselves.

OSX server virtualisation would be wonderful but I really don't know if Jobs will go there. I can see Tim Cook allowing it, yes, but never Jobs while he is alive. (Oops)

 

[Glial]

Virtualization

Allowing OS X Server to run as a VM would keep the product alive. I don't think the hardware (XServe) is relevant anymore, but having the ability to put OS X Server in a VM cluster is. One - to - One server/application installations are dead. Clustered virtualization is the future and I'm sure Apple fully understands that.

 

[Yebubbleman]

That kind of speculation is silly, the Server OS isn't going anywhere. They only discontinued the worst-selling server product in their server line-up.

 

[AidenShaw]

Wow, just wow.

Wow - there's a hearsay report that The Lord God Jobs issued a one word comment on a complex question.

And it's news?

Jobs may not be with us by WWDC - don't stake your company's IT plans on a purported Iphone text.

That kind of speculation is silly, the Server OS isn't going anywhere. They only discontinued the worst-selling server product in their server line-up.

They discontinued the only piece of server hardware sold by Apple.

Speculation is not silly when you base it on that fact.

 

[TimUSCA]

I'm not sure what the fuss is all about... seems pretty obvious to me that OS X Server is fine.

Why would they go through the trouble to sell Mac Pro and Mac Mini server editions if they were planning on killing the OS? Doesn't make any sense. If they're going to kill OS X Server, they'd just do it - not allow more products that use it.

 

[azentropy]

I respond "No" all the time, I must be clever too!

I'd still like to see Mac OS X certified to run on VMWare. I think that would be a win/win.

 

[JDiggity82]

Allowing OS X Server to run as a VM would keep the product alive. I don't think the hardware (XServe) is relevant anymore, but having the ability to put OS X Server in a VM cluster is. One - to - One server/application installations are dead. Clustered virtualization is the future and I'm sure Apple fully understands that.

Just curious but what enterprise environments would require virtualized Mac OSX servers? I'm curious for my own knowledge, simply because I personally have no clue where that avenue would need to be explored.

More to the same point, and it has been stated already in this thread. The current Mac Pro hardware is desktop hardware, and not even Mid-Size business hardware. I suspect that OSX Server was intended to be a compliment to XServe only and when that HW platform never flourished they were left holding the bag of support for OSX Server. I bet they wish they could go back and kill that product before it began.

-J

 

[Small White Car]

I'm not sure what the fuss is all about... seems pretty obvious to me that OS X Server is fine.

That kind of speculation is silly, the Server OS isn't going anywhere. They only discontinued the worst-selling server product in their server line-up.

People are interested because of this rumor posted yesterday:

https://www.macrumors.com/2011/01/17/apple-considering-discontinuing-more-server-focused-products/

 

[Yebubbleman]

They discontinued the only piece of server hardware sold by Apple.

Speculation is not silly when you base it on that fact.

The Mac Pro Server configuration and the Mac mini Server configuration aren't servers? If you're basing your claim on them discontinuing the only 1U RACK MOUNT SERVER HARDWARE sold by Apple, then I'll accept that. Otherwise, they discontinued the least sold of the three. And I'm basing that on fact.

 

[nagromme]

Some CEOs, approached by one customer out of millions, would have ignored the matter or just said “no”.

But kudos to Steve Jobs for putting in more time than that. The capital “N” really speaks volumes, and the period is highly informative as well.

 

[LethalWolfe]

Steve Jobs speaks to what's best for Apple at the moment the question was asked. He doesn't speak to what things may or may not be in Apple's future.

Him saying "no" to this is as meaningless as asking him about video iPods or cell phones in years past (he said no to both of those things as well, FWIW).


Lethal

 

[BC2009]

I think the OSX-Server rumors should be "Page 2" at best. These last two Page-1 features have been based on the most unsubstantiated stuff I have seen in a while.

I don't use OS-X server, but if I ran a small business with Macs on the desktop I think it would be a good choice to reduce maintenance/IT costs. I have never heard of large "enterprise" using OSX-Server except maybe some media production corporations -- but even then I am sure they only use it in some departments and not as their backbone for primary infrastructure services.

 

[the vj]

It reminds me of the scene in Mel Brooks' Silent Movie where they asked Marcel Marceau to be in the movie and he ironically spoke his response.

Damn you are old.