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Not all surprising to me. Apple has become a mobile computing company. It is what they do best.

I am a bit surprised how many people actually used these Xserve systems for their business. I am not familiar with the product however. Do users run web servers on them or are they just typically file/print servers?

Well the irony being, how do you serve mobile applications? With servers!

I suspect the thing here is that Apple want to do the serving. All of it. Let's just hope they do it better than MobileMe.
 
OS X/iOS development is about to explode on the consumer front with the merging of he two operating systems and the expansion of the App Store into Macs.



What? The Average Consumer represents the vast bulk of the consumer market. How the hell does that "marginalize" OS X/iOS? Do you know what "marginalize" even means?? Apple is EXPANDING in the consumer market with their iOS/App Store push.

LTD, the fact is that you live in your little Apple world for which is your universe, you are unable to see the larger picture. There is more to programming / computing than supporting iOS. The way Apple is going, OSX will become nothing more than just for average users. Now , this is a shame because OSX is capable of much more, with not much more effort on Apple's part.

This is why microsoft has been successful and will continue to do so, because microsoft cater for all types of users. Which is exactly the opposite direction that Apple seem to be heading: the average user.
 
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This makes me sad, as if nothing else the XServes are a beautiful machine. Fine that's not really a big deal in the server market, but in my dream set-up I'd still have bought one for running services :(
 
new svelte 2U Mac Pro that, with a cradle can slip into a rack?

Tuesday Feb 1st?
 
Sad news for me. The school I am the Network Administrator for owns 2 Xserves (with over 350 Windows clients) and I love them except for OD not working properly with MS Windows Server 08 aand Win7 (MS changed how they connect to a domain and no longer have NT style domain support). Apple's fault for not keeping with the times or MS's fault for changing, I won't get into the blame game. I do hope they will announce something comparable when the Xserve is discontinued, along with newer MS OS support.

Windows 2008 R2 domains still supports LM and NTLM authentication for downlevel clients. I believe MS may have just changed the default security settings which may now prevent legacy clients from authenticating. Anonymous enumeration of shares and SID/Name translation are a couple settings that may be disabled, which may cause authentication problems for legacy clients.
 
This is why microsoft has been successful and will continue to do so, because microsoft cater for all types of users. Which is exactly the opposite direction that Apple seem to be heading: the average user.

No, they'll continue to be successful because of their licensing scheme in the consumer sector and their presence in the enterprise sector. Of course, Apple over the next few years will leave them in the dust.

In the consumer sector they're WAY behind Apple in terms of growth markets. Way behind. Over the next few years we'll see MS eclipsed by Apple in the consumer sector.
 
I love my Macs and this comes as a huge disappointment. I had plans to deploy some in a rack in my data center. A Mac Mini Server is no use for an Enterprise Data Center, no FiberChannel. Sure Mac Pro is still there, but awkward for rack installations. If Apple is really trying to shift everything to iOS style systems it will take a huge dive and once again loose their crown. Now is a good time to sale shares.

Mac Minis would make sense in a server farm, if there was a good network storage solution available for the Mac Mini.
Maybe all this is part of Apple's strategy related to their optical alternative to USB3. Who know's what the near future will bring...
 
No, they'll continue to be successful because of their licensing scheme in the consumer sector and their presence in the enterprise sector. Of course, Apple over the next few years will leave them in the dust.

In the consumer sector they're WAY behind Apple in terms of growth markets. Way behind. Over the next few years we'll see MS eclipsed by Apple in the consumer sector.

No, microsoft are successful because they offer what businesses want and need, while offering a road map. Apple offer none of these.

An example "Apple Releases New 'Server' Configuration of Mac Pro to Replace Xserve"... well, sorry, but mac Pros cannot replace XServes as rack mounts.

Apple treat its Pro consumers like crap. I'm surprised it still has any customers for FCP, for example.

Apple are putting their efforts into consumer business... which like someone else said is extremely fickle.. one moment somethings cool - the next moment it isn't.

So, what if for the moment microsoft aren't quite doing so well in consumer market ( which will change )- they still have their enterprise business going very well... microsoft i'm very sure will , and have started to, reving their consumer efforts once again.
 
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Its funny this has come the day after a gartner report urged corporations to start moving on the iPad, "It is not usually the role of the CEO to get directly involved in specific technology device decisions, but Apple's iPad is an exception. It is more than just the latest consumer gadget. CEOs and business leaders should initiate a dialog with their CIOs about if they have not already done so."
 
In the studio I worked at, back in '04 we bought a G5 Xserve. It was used as a file server and email server. It worked pretty well... we could share using AFP, meaning no worries with special characters in the file names, and it gave us instant internal email, simply polling our web server for incoming mail every 15 minutes. We should have bought a G5 tower, in hindsight, because htat thing was huge -- deeper than most racks, and noisy as hell. It was like a plane revving up before takeoff, all the time.

If the Mini server had been available at the time, we'd have taken it. Strikes me that Apple has realised that that's where most of its server sales are -- to SMB's running Mac networks with some PCs attached, mainly for small workgroup activities: test web server, internal email, files, iCal, etc.

As for device speed, for anything other than a render farm, FW800 is fine. The average Gigabit Ethernet transfers files at about 30MB/s, which is USB2 speed, so USB and FW should be okay for that.

What's next? I expect they'll take their Xserve resources and use them to enhance the Mini Server as a separate product. With what they've fitted in the current model, a new one twice the height would have room for more RAM, a higher TDP rating CPU, maybe removable drive sleds, and a second PSU. Throw in some eSATA ports and you could have a Mighty Mac Server.

With the big push the Mini Server gave OS X Server, I don't think they'll be giving up on the software soon.

Oh and that data centre running Linux? Right. Because they don;t already own a server OS called Darwin.
 
No, they'll continue to be successful because of their licensing scheme in the consumer sector and their presence in the enterprise sector. Of course, Apple over the next few years will leave them in the dust.

In the consumer sector they're WAY behind Apple in terms of growth markets. Way behind. Over the next few years we'll see MS eclipsed by Apple in the consumer sector.

apple cant do **** in the enterprise sector if they dont have 4 hour onsite support, apple's support is garbage in general for anything corporate related.

both dell and hp have onsite support either 4 hour, same day, or 3 day to repair ANY HARDWARE (servers, desktops, laptops, etc, etc)

whats apple's support? 90 day tech support? lol useless
 
I understand what you're saying, but again, you miss my point. Apple Makes $X Billions on iPhones, iPads, iPods, and MacBooks, and iMacs. They make $X Millions on Xserve. Without going to look at their financials, I would guess it's less than a $20 Million business for them. Do the math... where are you going to put your efforts?

Apple computers work just fine as clients on a variety of networks. There is little lost by XServe not being the backbone. Yes, it's nice that it was there, but it's just not their business and being half-a**'d at something is not a place to be.

I stand by my statement. I think this is a good thing overall and will allow Apple to focus on what's selling and giving us the best of class products where it counts.

By your logic a company should discontinue any product that isn't making the most money, even though that product helps sell MORE of the product that do make you money. You really missed my point entirely, the revenue from XServe isn't just what Apple takes in from the XServe, for every XServe they sell I bet there are at least 10 macs purchased as a result, probably more. This is the strategy that really helped Apple make it to the point where they are at today, they cultivated an entire ecosystem, servers, workstations, phones, laptops the whole deal.

By discontinuing a big part of that ecosystem Apple is no longer the one stop shop. There is a much less compelling reason to pay more for Apple workstations if you are forced to integrate them into a non-Apple environment. THey can do that of course, but its much easier to do everything all Apple.

The less exposure people get to macs where they work and where they go to school the less likely they are to purchase Apple products for the home.

Keeping the XServe up to date wasn't exactly consuming massive amounts of Apple's resources but it was generating a ton of good will and willingness on the part of users to jump ship and go Apple because they had the assurance that Apple would have all the bases covered. Even if they weren't planning on buying an XServe right off the bat the fact that it was there was a reassurance and helped make the move that much easier.

Plus Apple has basically shown that they cannot be trusted to keep products going and give very little notice when they cancel them. Do you really think that makes people MORE likely to buy Apple products? Doubtful.

Futhermore the consumer market is an incredibly fickle place. Tell me of one company you know that has succeeded solely in the consumer electronics field for more than a decade. The only one I can think of is Nintendo, and even they have ran into a lot of trouble in the past.
 
No, microsoft are successful because they offer what businesses want and need, while offering a road map. Apple offer none of these.

Apple just offers the hottest gear in consumer tech and drives innovation in the consumer sector. That's all. LOL

But you're right, MS should stick to what they do best. Windows on boxes in offices. And trying to shoehorn Windows into a tablet. And having their entire mobile strategy destroyed overnight and *then* coming back three years later with something that *might* have been impressive three years ago.

Microsoft succeeds because of licensing and upgrades.

Apple succeeds because they innovate. Whether it's something entirely new or an old idea finally executed properly.
 
apple cant do **** in the enterprise sector if they dont have 4 hour onsite support, apple's support is garbage in general for anything corporate related.

both dell and hp have onsite support either 4 hour, same day, or 3 day to repair ANY HARDWARE (servers, desktops, laptops, etc, etc)

whats apple's support? 90 day tech support? lol useless

Actually Apple had pretty good support contracts for their enterprise stuff and if you really didn't have the redundancy built in to the point where you needed 4 hour support you are doing it wrong.

While Apple's support wasn't the best I have ever experienced, it was a hell of a lot better than Dell's, ie some dude in India who refuses to deviate from his prepared script no matter how much you told him that the said script had no relevancy.

If the problem was pressing enough you could even get in contact with an Apple software engineer. Good luck getting that with Microsoft and/or Dell.
 
The way Apple is going, OSX will become nothing more than just for average users. Now , this is a shame because OSX is capable of much more, with not much more effort on Apple's part.

That's true, but remember that Apple is a business. Businesses are meant to make money (please excuse the obvious statement, I'm not trying to lecture).

While I'm sure Jobs would love to see OS X fulfill its potential in every way possible (the "much more" you mention it's capable of), Apple will move to where there is money.
 
apple cant do **** in the enterprise sector if they dont have 4 hour onsite support, apple's support is garbage in general for anything corporate related.

both dell and hp have onsite support either 4 hour, same day, or 3 day to repair ANY HARDWARE (servers, desktops, laptops, etc, etc)

whats apple's support? 90 day tech support? lol useless

but it's so much cooler to take your XServer to the Genius Bar
 
Well at least they added the Mac Pro Server configuration. They could have easily said "Stick with the Mac Mini or figure out how to make your own server." :p

R.I.P. Xserve, we'll sorta miss you...

xserve-comic.jpg
 
Good old Apple... 2 steps forward, 1 step back....

They FINALLY start making some big inroads in business and government sales (for instance, where I work, nearly 1/2 the staff has MBP's, and we have at least 1 X-Serve at each of our 4 locations, with the main office having multiple), and what do they do? Kill off the Enterprise solution...

Our admins LOVE their X-Serves... I'm sorry, but a Mac Pro (I have one at home) is NOT an enterprise grade server... No reduntant anything, and when was the last time you saw a company using a tower as a server???

APPLE, GET YOUR HEADS OUT OF YOUR BUTTS!!!! NOT EVERYTHING IS iOS!
 
Well at least they added the Mac Pro Server configuration. They could have easily said "Stick with the Mac Mini or figure out how to make your own server." :p

R.I.P. Xserve, we'll sorta miss you...

xserve-comic.jpg

LOL, cute picture, but I think you've got too much time on your hands to create this pic just for the thread topic. :p

I don't get it, why are so many people here so bent out of shape of a server the majority here won't be buying for ourselves. Also this forum is weird, you get upset when Apple is swallowing many parts of the tech market in fear they will make it a closed system, now they look to be backing out of the business sector and you guys are upset about it? Weird.
Does Apple need to own every sector of the tech world? NO. They cover a lot of parts of tech and they do it very well so please, some of you need to stop acting so over dramatic over something that's not affecting you anyway.
 
Well, you just stay in your little Apple world.... Microsoft will make a comeback in the consumer market... because they need to and have the resources to do so. Apple are putting too many eggs in one basket, while driving out existing customers.

Apple can, and in its best interests to support both consumer market and the pro market, and not head down this road of "consumer only". Supporting the Pro / business market also drives the consumer market - i.e., getting new consumer customers.

Apple just offers the hottest gear in consumer tech and drives innovation in the consumer sector. That's all. LOL

But you're right, MS should stick to what they do best. Windows on boxes in offices. And trying to shoehorn Windows into a tablet. And having their entire mobile strategy destroyed overnight and *then* coming back three years later with something that *might* have been impressive three years ago.

Microsoft succeeds because of licensing and upgrades.

Apple succeeds because they innovate. Whether it's something entirely new or an old idea finally executed properly.
 
Good old Apple... 2 steps forward, 1 step back....

They FINALLY start making some big inroads in business and government sales (for instance, where I work, nearly 1/2 the staff has MBP's, and we have at least 1 X-Serve at each of our 4 locations, with the main office having multiple), and what do they do? Kill off the Enterprise solution...

Our admins LOVE their X-Serves... I'm sorry, but a Mac Pro (I have one at home) is NOT an enterprise grade server... No reduntant anything, and when was the last time you saw a company using a tower as a server???

APPLE, GET YOUR HEADS OUT OF YOUR BUTTS!!!! NOT EVERYTHING IS iOS!

iOS Server.
:D
 
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