Apple Considering Discontinuing More Server-Focused Products?

[Yebubbleman]

Uhm, how about no?
They started their comeback with a brand new design that was entirely aimed at 100% of consumers: the iMac.
And their actual breakthrough came with the iPod.
No corporate hardware or software involved in any of this.

Your claim that you'd need consumer&pro integrated doesn't make sense at all. Companies like IBM, Oracle etc are ENTIRELY corporate. They don't need consumer products at all and are still hugely successful. Same way that Apple doesn't need corporate products to be the most valuable IT company in the world.

True, though to say that Apple doesn't have a corporate footing even sans their server products is also false.

Apple Compute --> Apple --> Apple Consumer Electronics


Face it pro's....we picked the wrong horse. Sad to say, hard to admit, but the facts are the facts.

Apple has moved from the company for people who love computers to the company for people who love style.

We are just not welcome in the 'New Apple'. We were useful while the company was ailing, but we have served our function and Apple Consumer Electronics is ready to focus on the more consumer side of the market.

With the 15" and 17" MacBook Pro, the 27" Quad Core iMac, and the Mac Pro, how do you figure any of that? Sure, they could have more than they do, but they're not ****** nor are they incompetent for Pro usage.

 

[Speedy2]

Palm. Micron. Kodak. Almost HP.

Micron? what?
HP never 'almost died' and never was about to abandon their corporate activities.
Palm died because their sole product line (PDA) became redundant and they realized it too late.

What have you been smoking?

 

[miles01110]

Micron? what?
HP never 'almost died' and never was about to abandon their corporate activities.
Palm died because their sole product line (PDA) became redundant and they realized it too late.

What have you been smoking?

Clearly you were either not alive or not paying attention when these companies fell from corporate grace. You are forgiven.

 

[Speedy2]

Don't you think that the "cloud" needs software and hardware too? Ar you expecting serious client software to use some generic cloud (with ability to synchronize contacts as a hilite)?

Apple uses Sun hardware in their datacenter.
Doesn't that say enough?

 

[haze]

Big mistake. I teach at a high school, my lab is all Mac. All of our student accounts are network accounts on the Xserve using LDAP. I also use it as a Netboot to image my entire lab. I have had countless students beg their parents to buy them a Mac after using them in my class. If the server goes away, my Mac lab goes away. If I can't manage the student accounts/clients it is of no use. It also means my video production class moves from Final Cut. Apple loses customers. STUPID, short term thinking. Where is the famous Apple vision?

 

[Speedy2]

with push notification SL server beats the exchange hands down at the moment, just on licensing cost.

Licensing cost is just a minor part of TCO. It's actually negligible if you compare it to the cost of one admin.
And you're really quoting 'push notifications' as something that influences your decision on this matter? And you are somehow implying that Exchange couldn't do that? Wow.

 

[faroZ06]

Apple uses Sun hardware in their datacenter.
Doesn't that say enough?

Mac OS X Server is for schools and small businesses. Apple's problem is that it does not work with large companies, mainly due to it being only for Apple hardware.

Apple is great at making pro products, but it doesn't make them money since they cannot compete with Oracle and stuff.

 

[HiVolt]

Next will be the Mac pro. Everything will go through the cloud.

Yeah, just wait until the common ISP's in the US start to charge for usage. The cloud system will disappear really quickly...

Here in Canada we're facing a huge shift in usage patterns, as the major Telco & CableCo's have introduced punitive usage based billing and traffic shaping, and now are forcing metered usage to the smaller alternative ISP's who lease their last mile.

Comcast in the US may have a 250GB cap, and let me tell you, we'd beg on our knees for a cap of that size. Here the caps are in the 25-50GB for sub 10mbit speeds that cost $40-50/month, excessive usage is billed at minimum $3-5 per GB.

 

[Nuvi]

I use Adobe at school in a creative environment. Premier is glitchy and annoying, basically FCE but worse. Flash is also annoying to use, but the main drawback is that the FLVs and SWFs from it lag computers a lot. This is why I never really use Flash Player on Safari. Audition is way worse since Premier is already bad.

Sorry to sound like an anti-Adobe maniac in my post, but I really don't see anything that they make that is good today other than Illustrator and Photoshop.

So you're a school kid and I'm professional creating advertising for some of the premier brands in the world. Sorry mate but the gap between us two is far greater then you could ever imagine. This may sound harsh but it's the truth. I'm sorry.

 

[miles01110]

Big mistake.

Honestly it seems like the "big mistake" was buying a niche enterprise product from a clearly consumer-oriented company. The writing has been on the wall for the XServe for years. The only surprise was that it took this long to get killed.

If the server goes away, my Mac lab goes away.

Why? Apple won't be coming to your lab and ripping up your rack. Plus you'll get the same level of support- zero- that you got before.

If I can't manage the student accounts/clients it is of no use. It also means my video production class moves from Final Cut.

No, it means you'll be using the same stuff from now on.

Apple loses customers. STUPID, short term thinking. Where is the famous Apple vision?

Actually it probably means they gain customers in the long run by focusing development funding in areas they're good at. Like the iPhone.

 

[faroZ06]

Big mistake. I teach at a high school, my lab is all Mac. All of our student accounts are network accounts on the Xserve using LDAP. I also use it as a Netboot to image my entire lab. I have had countless students beg their parents to buy them a Mac after using them in my class. If the server goes away, my Mac lab goes away. If I can't manage the student accounts/clients it is of no use. It also means my video production class moves from Final Cut. Apple loses customers. STUPID, short term thinking. Where is the famous Apple vision?

Then keep your stuff. It doesn't die once it's unsupported. I'm not like those people who keep buying new computers when they come out; I keep my Mac till it blows to pieces (RIP iMac G5 ) (oh nvm I can fix it )

 

[pmz]

Honestly I'm not really sure Apple needs to worry about this stuff.

We run 5 Mac Pros with Final cut in our offices but we link them all through an Avid Unity machine running Windows. Even though we love using our Macs that seemed like the smarter choice for us in the back room.

So why not let the other companies have that kind of business? As long as people are putting Macs on the desktops I think Apple will be just fine with that outcome.

This post is great. Windows runs across a wider array of hardware, and is perfect for the back room. Apple really can't match or keep up with this, so why waste good personal on these projects. They have better things to attend to.

 

[ThunderSkunk]

You didn't really think that OS X Server would be in any way a replacement for Exchange, did you?

And 9 users? How about getting hosted Exchange accounts?

Yea, but only because they don't use exchange at all. They found it to be too costly to maintain, so they use it as a file server only. Their email and calendar are google-based. I actually set that up in my spare time for em, and it's pretty slick. and free. ...and maintenence free. And syncs with everybodys devices like cake.

Even the file server barely gets used. We're talking accessing about a dozen documents a day total. Honestly, they could probably get away with a shared partition on a local machine and they'd never see a difference. Not that I'd do that to em, but...

Might just grab a little Mac Mini Server or printserver & a little NAS or something.

 

[Winni]

Apple runs it's own servers on what? PC's with Linux?

Actually, Apple run their servers on Sun (now Oracle) hardware and on Sun (now Oracle) Solaris. Pixar, by the way, always used Sun Workstations/Servers and, yes, Linux.

It is neither a secret nor a rumor that Apple never used their own server hard- and software themselves.

So why would anyone want to buy Apple server platforms when the engineers at Apple don't even eat their own dog food?

 

[jlc1978]

Pro users are different. The number of servers in my datacenter continues to grow - not shrink. Apple dumping the server and SAN hardware makes perfect sense- so they can run on any x86 hardware (there are many vendors). If they stop making a server OS, this would spell the end of OSX in the enterprise.

I'm not sure if you mean Apple should make OSX Server run on stock x86 hardware; but if you did I'm not sure if that would be in Apple's best interests. They would essential create an OS that can run on any x86 architecture and run OS X apps, opening the door for a whole slew of "Hackintoshes" That could have a very negative impact on hardware sale and Apple has been very reluctant to open the door for anyone to run their OS (even in the Apple ][ days) on non-Apple hardware. I don't see them making it a lot easier by just selling a server OS and letting people roll their own hardware.

Granted, they could charge a lot of just the OS; but then they irk losing sales to other server solutions.

My guess is Apple just doesn't see the growth and margins on the server side and have decided to bow out. They seem to be pressing a strategy of "owning the consumer eyeball" - be it for TV / video / phone / etc.

Rather than spend time and talent on server solutions they can build the infrastructure to deliver content to consumers and let someone else build the server they need and just make money hand over fist on the eyeball.

 

[alhumphrey]

Licensing cost is just a minor part of TCO. It's actually negligible if you compare it to the cost of one admin.
And you're really quoting 'push notifications' as something that influences your decision on this matter? And you are somehow implying that Exchange couldn't do that? Wow.

Am say that push notification in sl make it a no brainer. lots of different licenses, windows serve, exchange, sharepoint. or the one SL server.

there was a table on here a month or to back with the cost difference of a dell server and an equal x server. while the dell server was cheeper to by the added cost of licenses made it nearly 4x more that the x server all in one cost.

 

[calaverasgrande]

One of the things I have like about Apple, is that they don't always do what the beancounters would advise them. They keep product lines alive that arent nearly as profitable as the ipods/iphones.
If they ditch all server products that would suck. It could also mean they are re-focussing engineering resources towards something more interesting?
Server stuff is pretty boring to be honest!
My fear is that this kind of thinking could lead to the end of the Mac Pro line. After all, I am sure they sell far more iMacs and Mac Minis that Mac Pros. I am sure they get a better margin on the Mini and iMac as well.
As far as why? Well as has been said, there are Linux distros that do domain controller, directory, mail server for cheaper and with more documentation.
OS X Server (and the pre OS X server prooducts) always seemed to me to be aimed at small businesses that wanted an Apple only shop. Once you get past a certain size Apples server products just dont scale.

 

[PeterQVenkman]

THAT'S ridiculous. They are not getting rid of the Mac Pro;

All of Apple's other behavior supports my theory, not yours.

they're just not marketing it to consumers anymore as the 27" iMac tends to serve most high-end consumers just fine.

Yes, they aren't marketing the Mac Pro anymore, are they? Hmmmm.... In fact, what's the last Apple commercial or ad you've seen? Was it even for a computer?

 

[Speedy2]

True, though to say that Apple doesn't have a corporate footing even sans their server products is also false.

It is not. Apple is a typical consumer-only company (similar to maybe Wal-Mart) They may have products that are used in corporations like iPhones or Mac clients. But except those few lines that are on their way out none are actual 'corporate products'. They were not designed to be used mostly in corporations, they lack pretty much everything that would make them 'corporate'. XServe was a corporate product. Mac OS Server is a corporate product. Mac Pro.
None of them are fueling Apple's current success, and you can see by the amount of attention they get that they are all in danger of extinction.

Guys, the days of Apple as that lovely maker of lovely Macs for lovely design studios are long gone. 'bout time you get used to it.

 

[Speedy2]

Clearly you were either not alive or not paying attention when these companies fell from corporate grace. You are forgiven.

I will leave it at that. I'm not gonna sink to your level.

 

[LucidMac]

Exactly

Why Apple is completely axing the products is beyond me. The biggest reason why the XServe was seeing poor performance is because IT departments are virtualizing like CRAZY, and Apple requires that if you are going to virtualize their stuff, that it be on their hardware. Not many IT departments are going to lock themselves into XServe-only.

I know Apple likes to sell hardware, but in the case of their server stuff, they really should wise up and sell the OS licenses for Mac OSX Server so IT guys can run it on VMWare ESX.

That is exactly the point. Focusing on server hardware w/o considering virtualization is a losing strategy for Apple. So why bother continuing? I wondered how long Apple would keep up this niche server market and I always question the wisdom of those who brag about how they just switched all of there servers to Apple. I wondered how long it would take for these folks to realize the huge mistake they had made. It seems judgement day is upon us.

 

[Full of Win]

True, though to say that Apple doesn't have a corporate footing even sans their server products is also false.



With the 15" and 17" MacBook Pro, the 27" Quad Core iMac, and the Mac Pro, how do you figure any of that? Sure, they could have more than they do, but they're not ****** nor are they incompetent for Pro usage.

1. Apple Design Awards for desktop apps cancelled
2. Glossy Displays w/ only 72% Gamut
3. Final Cut Pro still a 32 bit Carbon based app... in 2011!
4. Presentations almost always focus on iOS
5. OpenGL 3.....when ????
6. Pro level cards gone
7. X-Server on its deathbed.

 

[G4DP]

The "pro" market is a tiny, tiny slice of Apple's multi-billion dollar pie. There will be no impact to Apple's consumer business, which continues to grow. It's obvious the numbers don't make sense to Apple to justify continuing those product lines. It's all about the numbers.

I was planning on running my new brokerage using Mac OS X Server... now I'm starting to wonder.

The 'pro-market' kept Apple in business. History has a habit of repeating itself. There will come a point when all the iSheep wake up and the next fad will come along, they'll leave Apple in their droves. You can only buy so many iPhones, iPad's etc. Although given the drop in quality they seem to break more often.

The run of luck has lasted a decade. No company has a much longer period of success. It's just as well they have $bn's in the bank. There may come a point when it'll be keeping the company alive.

Who will Apple turn too when the iSheep have disappeared?

 

[jlc1978]

Palm. Micron. Kodak. Almost HP.

Palm was never really pro - they had a nice gadget that created a market but they failed to keep up and were eclipsed by MS initially and later Apple. They are a typical story of a company that creates a market and loses out to the fast followers that capitalize on the growth of the market.

Micron got caught up in the commoditization of the PC business - consolidation was inevitable as that happened.

Kodak failed to realize that they were in the picture business, not the chemical business until it was too late. They stayed in the pro market for a long time but as it went from film to digital Kodak lost out to other companies that either made the switch or were positioned to take advantage of the new market due to their existing technology.

Which HP? The calculator company? Test gear company? PC manufacturer?

 

[thejadedmonkey]

With the 15" and 17" MacBook Pro, the 27" Quad Core iMac, and the Mac Pro, how do you figure any of that? Sure, they could have more than they do, but they're not ****** nor are they incompetent for Pro usage.

The Macbook Pro's aren't professional computers, they're consumer computers with a fancy name. Likewise with the quad core iMacs and the Mac Pro. Need proof? Most business/professional computers have a DVI port for connecting to projectors, express card slots for expandability, and eSata ports for external drives. The "Pro" lineup from Apple has none of this (save the 17" MBP with the express card slot). Even the Mac Pro doesn't have an esata port!