Whiny ? That's because there's a lot more investment in an enterprise platform than a laptop purchase. Some of the people using X serve invested a lot in their infrastructure and Apple in one, unannounced fell swoop probably destroyed months of planning and created many more months of figuring out how to migrate the current infrastructure to some other platform.
Mac OS X server still works on Mac Pros.
This is a space issue more so than a platform issue.
And let's face it, people with large Mac deployments still need the Apple tools that OS X server offers, yet they've now been shown the finger as far as enterprise grade hardware they need.
Because they all had dual power supplies, RS-232 DB9 hooked up XServes.
A Mac Pro will provide the same services over the same wires. Different rack space ( especially if forced to store them vertically in a rack).
Not to mention the people running FC Server that really have no migration path at all anymore.
FC Server had some unique XServe electronic hardware feature????
You don't just "drop" enterprise products if you want to be taken seriously in the enterprise. This might change a few minds that were about to purchase a couple of iPhones/iPads for corporate deployment.
It is marginally better than the XServe RAID desupport. At least folks have 2 months to buy one if seriously need one and there are still Apple alternatives (not 100% equivalent but alternatives).
If a future Mac Pro next Fall gets just a couple of "Back to the Mac from XServe" upgrades this will be muted alot.
a. Mac Pro that can convert to a horizontal 4U mount. (just make a way to loose the handles by undoing some latches or something like that. )
b. 2-3 front mounted 2.5" drive sleds slots with lock and indicator lights. ( still useful on Mac Pro too)
c. plug-in Lights-out card.
d. SSD card slot ( sheesh even the MBA got one of those )
Not sure how get 900W dual power supplies in there though.
If strip away the case and just look at Mac Pro motherboard the vast majority of the stuff there is
exactly the same as the XServe. In fact there are more slot so can have more flexibility. It would not be hard to mutate the Mac Pro slightly so that could also be leveraged as a server without taking anything away from it being a Workstation.
It wouldn't be a conventional 1U server but it would work for those who had a couple extra 1U spaces left in rack. I think people are downplaying that factor. There was a huge overlap in functionality and pricing between the Mac Pro and XServes. Geting rid of that will help the Mac Pro and thereby allow Apple to continue offering a "bigger than mini" server.
Annoying that will probably have to wait to till next Fall to see the updates for Mac Pro but can easily work out.
For problems where only needed less that 1U compute power.... again very minor updates to the Mini will solve that. Could see a retweaked Mac Mini Server by June. ( 1-2 SSD drive (to give back some internal space) , Core i5 part (swap space with hard drive for i5 + discrete GPU ) , and maybe two Ethernet ports (dropping some of the USB ones) would go long way to solving a few of its problems).
Again you can still use most of those updates on a regular Mac Mini so not really hurting anything to put them on without Mac OS X Server.
Sure they will miss some folks who needed less than a Mac Pro (less than 4U) and more than a mini (more an a 0.5U ) .... Same way they miss the mythical mini tower now. Guess what that isn't coming back either, but hasn't exactly hampered market share either.
If more people buy Mac Pros ....... that is a good thing. Especially since too few people buying XServes is exactly why they disappeared.
What is strange is the timing if they were re-gearing the server system wouldn't they wait till Lion and not the opening of the MacAppStore. They need to have some plan and they really need to tell us what it is. As you say a lot people rely on the system and need to be able to plan on it going forward in a decent way.
If they are doing major case, hardware tweaks to Mac Pro for next Fall they are doing that now and have been doing it for many months. So why side track engineering resources this Spring/Summer to tweak the XServe with a minor speed bump when they can be working a throughoutly revised Mac Pro for next Fall. Lion comes next Fall. If trying to align hardware with it you have to be working on the hardware NOW. That means not thinning out our resources so thin can't get new stuff out the door.
For instance apple could have part of old XServe team working on putting the lights-out ability onto a PCI-e board or onto a motherboard for incorporation into the new Mac Pro. Same with front mounted, lockable disks (although likely limited to 2.5" ) .
In short, there are aspects of the XServes that can extract and weave into Mac Pro that would mean not all of the functionality folks are complaining about competely goes away.
the Mac App store has nothing to do with this other than perhaps sucking up Mac OS X resources and attention. the Mac App store is a diversion. It has nothing to do with Lion even though they introduced it in the Lion presentation.
If looking for ominous. Nuking java and then nuking XServe is a combo that will rattle more nerves than the Mac App store in the server space.
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