Apple Discontinues Xserve, Only Available Until January 31st

[logandzwon]

I agree with your analysis, but I'm puzzled as to why Apple didn't

• A: announce a strategic partnership with HP to support Apple OSX Server on a specific set of Proliant systems
• B: announce a strategic partnership with VMware to support Apple OSX Server on VMware Server/ESX

Unless, of course, the future is Ios only....

a; HP hardware has really low reliability compared to others
b: because VMware SErver/ESX is not administrable from OSX. Parallels maybe, but their market share and name are not really known wide enough.

 

[AidenShaw]

Links?

a; HP hardware has really low reliability compared to others

Do you have any support for that claim?

When I look I see stories like:

HP x86 servers beat out Dell, IBM on customer satisfaction

End users ranked Hewlett-Packard Co.'s (HP) Intel Corp. and Advanced Micro Devices Inc. (AMD) x86 portfolio No. 1 in Technology Business Research Inc.'s (TBR) Q1 2007 report, "Corporate IT Buying Behavior and Customer Satisfaction Study for x86-Based Servers."

http://searchdatacenter.techtarget....rs-beat-out-Dell-IBM-on-customer-satisfaction​

b: because VMware SErver/ESX is not administrable from OSX.

I'm sure that it wouldn't take long for VMware to adapt the Firefox plugin for OSX, if they had the incentive.

BTW, a workaround is to use a remote Firefox window from a Linux VM.

 

[Imhotep397]

Apple/Oracle/CRAY

(Yes I'm pulling this thread out of the basement again...which more people should do as I'm sure Apple monitors these forums)

Another thing to consider when looking at the Apple/Oracle potential is that it's well known that Ellison is looking to add chip expertise to Oracle. PA-Semi designing chips for iPhones/iPads really isn't making the best use of much of the company/group's potential.

Chip-wise AMD is the name that was mentioned most as targeted for acquisition by Oracle, but that rumor has been stale for a while and it doesn't seem like the relationship between AMD and Oracle is warm and fuzzy right now since Oracle severed it's relationship with AMD for AMD procs inside of Sun servers a couple of months ago. I suspect that if Oracle wanted to make the AMD acquisition happen it would have happened already. Nvidia is also a company that's been mentioned, but they already have a major market commitment in the graphics area which would certainly have to be sacrificed after an Oracle acquisition with no guaranteed success in GPGPU computing against stiff competition. ARM is another company that's been mentioned that also has a major market commitment in areas unrelated to Oracle's business that would probably be sacrificed in an Oracle acquisition. There are a lot of smaller semiconductor companies around, but they really don't have the kind of proven track records or bleeding edge kind of advancements that Oracle is looking for.

PA-Semi was designing 64-bit low consumption PowerPC chips for computer systems and high efficiency RAID controlling chips for server clustered storage before being acquired, so there's a window of opportunity there for Oracle and a ready-made, finished window into the enterprise world for Apple which will play a role in supplying Apple's products with data in the future if Apple wants to sustain the kind of prosperity they have much further in the future.

As I mentioned before Apple has known their file system is do for an overhaul and they'd already had plans in motion to implement ZFS that were dashed by Ellison soon after acquiring Sun. With the vast expansion in content delivery Apple is undertaking Oracle's expertise on an internalized/secure Data Asset Management system could only help. To that end of meshing together isles and isles of heterogeneous hardware CRAY with their background in developing UNICOS would help and having access to Apple's financial resources would help their general technology advancements tremendously. It would be a win on all sides for all companies provided that the corporate cultures and corporate leadership could blend.

Remember...it was only 3 years ago that the Apple/Google/Oracle merger almost happened and these various merger relationships tend to be revisited quite often.