Is 4000 orders for the Xserve a lot?

[groovebuster]

I remember that Apple was giving the info that they had about 4000 orders for the Xserve until end of June(?)...

I don't know how many servers are sold by other companies normally, but for me it sounds not that impressive, considering that it is world-wide.

The Xserve costs probably 5000$ in average, just estimated. 4000x5000 .... makes 20 million $ .... If Apple has the same margin on the Xserve as on other products it made them about 5-6 million $ of cash.

Compared just to all the other Macs sold during that time period it looks like not a lot.

How many Xserves Apple has to sell to make the whole server adventure not a fiasco??

Any thoughts, facts, opinions...?

groovebuster

 

[kaltsasa]

For apple coming out with a totaly new server product and trying to break into the hardcore server industry I don't think that 4000 Xserves at this point is too shabby. We here at my school district have one on order and egerly await its delivery. And figure that 1 Xserver, depending on the server load and configuration of the server, can easily serve 200-300 macs or more. I belive that the sales will pick up, people who have xserves will talk, people will listen, people will buy

 

[drastik]

Xserves are selling alright, I think. You have to consider that People aren't lurking aaround the store, waiting for the new servers to come out like they do desktops or notebooks. Servers get replaced when they need to be, not on a whim, so my guess is that servers move in a lot less volume than other comps.

 

[kaltsasa]

I would almost think that if you add in home users and the such that a reasonable ration of xserve's/regular macs would be 1 Xserve to 1000-1500 macs. Some body add on to this, this is just a rough estimite, i'm not sure how many macs are sold monthly but i dont think thats too bad a number, or in an enviroment where you have servers 1 xserve to every 300 macs (Give or take)

 

[iGav]

Success is relative really isn't it..... personally I don't think it's too bad...... Apple just need to step up and maintain the promotion of it.......

 

[kaltsasa]

Originally posted by iGAV
Success is relative really isn't it..... personally I don't think it's too bad...... Apple just need to step up and maintain the promotion of it.......

Very relative, Now if you try and compare the Xserve to the number of dell server's out there, well of course it will look paltry in comparison, I feel that its doing good, it will do better, its a great product(unlimited users is a definet plus) and we all need to give it some room and time to grow into another little apple product we love to hug

 

[groovebuster]

Originally posted by drastik
Xserves are selling alright, I think. You have to consider that People aren't lurking aaround the store, waiting for the new servers to come out like they do desktops or notebooks. Servers get replaced when they need to be, not on a whim, so my guess is that servers move in a lot less volume than other comps.

I didn't mean that Apple should ship as many Xserves as other Macs of course. I am just curious if anybody knows more about the demand of servers in general. Since Apple is not only targetting little agencies who need a file server with this machine, but also data centers and stuff like, also in companies that didn't use mac hardware before. Would be interesting if Apple really got a foot in the door at those...

Since I don't have a lot of experience in the server market (just used and installed them in the past, but never thought about sales numbers) I would like to know if 4000 is already a lot and what kind of companies ordered them for which purpose (and which platforms are involved in their corporate network). That would give a good picture, if the Xserve just replaced the tower servers so far or if it already could interest new customers who never thought about before to use a Mac as a server.

Also interesting would be how many "old" servers Apple sold before monthly in average to have numbers we can set into relation with the Xserve.

So far I think that almost nobody will buy a tower dedicated as a server anymore since they introduced the Xserve. When you need a performant server, you normally have a rack already for all your network stuff and the Xserve is just the more elegant solution than putting a tower on a board inside the rack (like seen in so many companies/agencies).

groovebuster

 

[iGav]

Originally posted by kaltsasa


Very relative, Now if you try and compare the Xserve to the number of dell server's out there, well of course it will look paltry in comparison, I feel that its doing good, it will do better, its a great product(unlimited users is a definet plus) and we all need to give it some room and time to grow into another little apple product we love to hug

Absolutely......... I think the Xserve is a great product...... would love a couple for myself....... actually would like 40 of them.... but there you go.....

I agree with you about the point that it'll do better....... I just hope that Apple promotes it the way it deserves to be....... It'll be interesting to see how many has been sold after 6 months, and who the customers were.......

 

[kaltsasa]

For the current time being, I think that Xservers have mostly been relplacing the old Apple tower servers.

 

[nuckinfutz]

The Money is not in the Sales

But in the Support.

Xserve Support Packs

Folks this link is where the money is. It's why Dell, Sun and all other Big Iron companies make money. It's selling Service...this is where the fat profit margins are. 4000 Xserves have the power to generate Apple more profit than 10,000 Powermac .

Here's the biggie.

AppleCare Professional SupportLine and Tools
Access to technical support staff and a wide range of tools for optimizing and troubleshooting Apple systems and software, including Xserve and Mac OS X Server. Order No. M8070LL/D

$2,799.00
Learn more

 

[Nipsy]

The reason you haven't seen them gobbled up by DataCenters are twofold:

DataCenters are populated entirely by hardcore geeks. These are people who prefer Linux installed one package at a time, over a network, to CDs. The ease of use factor matters far less in a DataCenter than the reliability factor. If the Xserve proves itself in point two, we'll see greater acceptance.

The second reason it that the Xserve is unproven. DataCenter customers (unlike mere consumers) do not want the lastest and greatest the day it comes out. They want the most stable, after all the bugs have been worked out. I know a few people in DataCenter environments who have ordered two Xserves, and will be benching them, documenting reliability, assessing failover performance, and if the machines pass with flying colors, will order a lot more.

The key to Enterprise servers is track record. If a machine/os prove themselves, they become massively popular. This is why so many servers are still Sun E450s running Solaris 7 server. It may be 30 months from current, but it works, and it works well. The Xserve needs to prove its mettle against the metal (sorry, couldn't help it) before it will sell in huge volumes.

 

[kaltsasa]

I'd take 42 Xserves and put them in a rack and do some massive rendering. Apple makes a mint on these, the applecare 3 year service itself is almost a grand, and most of the repairs if it needed them would want to be done in house at the location cuz its so easy to replace parts.

 

[groovebuster]

Originally posted by kaltsasa
I'd take 42 Xserves and put them in a rack and do some massive rendering. Apple makes a mint on these, the applecare 3 year service itself is almost a grand, and most of the repairs if it needed them would want to be done in house at the location cuz its so easy to replace parts.

And with the heat produced by those puppies you can heat the whole house. So you save money at the same time you make some by renting the rack to others who need the power for a while but can't justify to put a whole rack of Xserves!

groovebuster

 

[kaltsasa]

Sounds good to me.......Can I bum Half a million of off anyone?

 

[Hemingray]

Originally posted by groovebuster


And with the heat produced by those puppies you can heat the whole house. So you save money at the same time you make some by renting the rack to others who need the power for a while but can't justify to put a whole rack of Xserves!

groovebuster

Yeah... just make sure you take up living in someplace that requires year-round heating... like Antarctica!

 

[peterjhill]

Ever gone to www.ibm.com and configured one of the mainframe computers. It is fun doing a BTO that cost over a million dollars when your done.

Yeah, ship it to my house, and leave it on my doorstep ;-)