Steve Jobs Reassured Customer Concerned for Mac OS X Server's Future

[zodqyv]

Mac Pro

I run OSX Server on my Mac Pro. It runs great doing it's little server duties in the background while I use the same machine as my primary workstation. I would certainly miss the product if it were to go away.

That said, I seriously doubt Server is going away. It is a very easy product to produce and maintain, and very high profit.

 

[Yebubbleman]

Steve Jobs speaks to what's best for Apple at the moment the question was asked. He doesn't speak to what things may or may not be in Apple's future.

Him saying "no" to this is as meaningless as asking him about video iPods or cell phones in years past (he said no to both of those things as well, FWIW).


Lethal

Frankly, it's all meaningless until something actually happens. For now, the only thing that has actually happened is that the Xserve, the least sold of the three Apple made machines with the option of being preinstalled with Mac OS X Server, was discontinued. Until we see Final Cut Server, Xsan, or Mac OS X Server ACTUALLY get discontinued, everything else is speculative. Though I suppose that sentiment defeats the purpose of a site designed to incite discussion about Mac rumors and speculation.

 

[AidenShaw]

The Mac Pro Server configuration and the Mac mini Server configuration aren't servers? If you're basing your claim on them discontinuing the only 1U RACK MOUNT SERVER HARDWARE sold by Apple, then I'll accept that. Otherwise, they discontinued the least sold of the three. And I'm basing that on fact.

I think that if you poll a large number of IT folks dealing with non-home server environments, they'll say that redundant power supplies, onboard hardware RAID and LOM are requirements in the server room. Many will also say that a 19" rack-mount is a requirement.

The Mac Pro is a big FAIL in this department, and the Mini Mac Server is simply a laughingstock.

Ergo, my claim that Apple "discontinued the only piece of server hardware" made by Apple.

 

[Trakker]

OS X Server will branch onto iOS Support, Mar my words.

Soon there will be the option to manage iOS Apps via the server.

 

[alhumphrey]

Some CEOs, approached by one customer out of millions, would have ignored the matter or just said “no”.

But kudos to Steve Jobs for putting in more time than that. The capital “N” really speaks volumes, and the period is highly informative as well.

It said set from my iphone. So it auto capitalization on the first letter of the first word. Sorry

 

[stevearm]

I must be one of the few 'regular' Apple fanboys that's had a two reply email conversation with Steve

 

[blacktape242]

oh, that was a much needed reply no matter how short and to the point it was.

now I need to know about the future of iweb please.........

 

[alent1234]

idevices can't be beat

but with server products at least M$ dog foods their server products. apple sells business products that it can't even use

 

[raep]

Even tough hes on "vacation" he just cant stay away.

 

[AidenShaw]

Even tough hes on "vacation" he just cant stay away.

Did you miss the part where the original post said that this conversation took place in "early December"?

Long before the lastest health crisis....

 

[LethalWolfe]

Though I suppose that sentiment defeats the purpose of a site designed to incite discussion about Mac rumors and speculation.

Exactly.

Even tough hes on "vacation" he just cant stay away.

Steve said he was stepping away from day to day operations, which will be handled by Tom Cook, but will still be involved with any "major strategic decisions" and I would assume that life/death of their server OS falls into that category.


Lethal

 

[iSee]

I don't draw any conclusions from this.
Am I the only one who basically ignores info based on purported SJ emails because they are too easy to fake? Especially a one worder like this.

(I know he often really does reply, but there are fake ones too.)

 

[SkippyThorson]

The new report led one MacRumors reader to let us know that he had emailed Apple CEO Steve Jobs in early December specifically to inquire about whether Mac OS X Server might soon meet the same fate as the Xserve, and Jobs reportedly replied with a simple "no".

Jobs of course has a clever way of selectively addressing customer questions so as to not give away too much information, so readers should be careful of reading too much into his simple comment.

Am I the only one that found it funny, taking that to mean that fanboys need to be warned to not over-exaggerate the meaning of the word "no"?

 

[flowney]

MacOS X Server = MacOS X Client + Server GUI

MacOS X (client) is standard BSD Unix. Add a GUI to toggle things like Apache on/off and you have MacOS X Server. Unlike XServe, it costs Apple very little to offer this package.

It's the small workgroups that MacOS X Server is designed for and appeals to. Those workgroups can be quite happy with a Mac Pro or Mini. Larger operations such as universities and some research centers will need rack-mounted gear and that's where virtualization will make sense.

 

[Yebubbleman]

I think that if you poll a large number of IT folks dealing with non-home server environments, they'll say that redundant power supplies, onboard hardware RAID and LOM are requirements in the server room. Many will also say that a 19" rack-mount is a requirement.

The Mac Pro is a big FAIL in this department, and the Mini Mac Server is simply a laughingstock.

Ergo, my claim that Apple "discontinued the only piece of server hardware" made by Apple.

Fair point, but I don't think that Mac OS X Server is considered by anywhere near as many IT departments for that sort of application as the Windows and Linux Server OSes, and if you're not using their OS, why are you buying their hardware at the price they sell it at? For what you can do with it, OS X server suits the mini Server and the Mac Pro Server configs well. Apple just hasn't been able to tap the market that the Xserve was intended to tap with both it and OS X server.

 

[Dr McKay]

oh i loves steve's emails.

at-least he is feeling well enough to email

Well he's probably got nothing better to do now he's stuck at home

 

[Nuvi]

There should be guidelines for presenting questions to SJ... Answering "No" can mean anything since "near future" is open for debate especially in IT industry where "near future" doesn't carry beyond next quarter.

 

[mdriftmeyer]

Wirelessly posted (This odd thing that I hold: Mozilla/5.0 (iPhone; U; CPU iPhone OS 3_1_3 like Mac OS X; en-us) AppleWebKit/528.18 (KHTML, like Gecko) Version/4.0 Mobile/7E18 Safari/528.16)

OSX server lacks the enterprise and back end features that windows and unix have, and mac minis and mac pros don't fit into enterprise server rooms.

Apple maybe has been putting out tools that help enterprise deploy iOS on a windows / unix network. I only know of a couple but there are certainly more. Apple certainly have many more as they don't use osx server themselves.

OSX server virtualisation would be wonderful but I really don't know if Jobs will go there. I can see Tim Cook allowing it, yes, but never Jobs while he is alive. (Oops)

You really want to go with this one?

 

[polaris20]

I've said it before, the answer with OS X server is virtualization. Simply license it/allow it on ESX and Xenserver.

There's no need for physical servers anymore where OS X Server is generally used. Are people really using it for compute servers? We've even moved our compute servers from a Linux cluster to a Windows HPC cluster.

 

[PeterQVenkman]

The Mac Pro Server configuration and the Mac mini Server configuration aren't servers? If you're basing your claim on them discontinuing the only 1U RACK MOUNT SERVER HARDWARE sold by Apple, then I'll accept that. Otherwise, they discontinued the least sold of the three. And I'm basing that on fact.

Do any of the IT people on here take the Mac Mini seriously as a server? Or for that matter, the mac pro?

I think that if you poll a large number of IT folks dealing with non-home server environments, they'll say that redundant power supplies, onboard hardware RAID and LOM are requirements in the server room. Many will also say that a 19" rack-mount is a requirement.

The Mac Pro is a big FAIL in this department, and the Mini Mac Server is simply a laughingstock.

Ergo, my claim that Apple "discontinued the only piece of server hardware" made by Apple.

Oh yes, there is the answer to my above question.

 

[miles01110]

Unlikely for Apple to drop enterprise support, now more and more businesses are integrating iOS and Mac support.

What "enterprise support" are you referring to? AFAIK Apple doesn't have it. At least not anything comparable to what Dell, HP, Microsoft, or RIM offer.

But once they fix that small problem (along with making their prices competitive), they'll be ready to start taking back the enterprise market. Yep, that's all it would take!

 

[vincenz]

Awesome, so awesome, Steve.

 

[RedTomato]

You really want to go with this one?

Whoops brain fart. Yes I know OSX is more or less Unix compliant - I was really thinking of the ecosystem of enterprise utilities that have grown up around Windows Server, IBM systems, various Linuxes, Oracle etc et al.

I'm not seeing the same enterprise ecosystem around OSX Server. If you're going to use a whole bunch of Linux enterprise tools, then might as well just run a Linux server.

 

[jouster]

Damn you are old.

lol. I've seen "Gone With the Wind" - but not when it was released!

 

[farmboy]

I think that if you poll a large number of IT folks dealing with non-home server environments, they'll say that redundant power supplies, onboard hardware RAID and LOM are requirements in the server room. Many will also say that a 19" rack-mount is a requirement.

The Mac Pro is a big FAIL in this department, and the Mini Mac Server is simply a laughingstock.

Ergo, my claim that Apple "discontinued the only piece of server hardware" made by Apple.

That poll would be the very definition of sampling bias, of course. IT people seem generally dismissive of systems that may not require their constant supervision. All I know is that I must be doing something wrong, as my Mac Pro servers have been flawless in our businesses for 8 years. "Big fail" is must mean something different to you, I guess.