Steve Jobs: Xserve Axed Over Poor Sales

[KnightWRX]

I'm not talking about the EULA, I'm talking about some sort of deal that was made a while ago, to run it on Oracle's servers.

I can't for the life of me remember where I read it, and I might even be wrong.

And like I said, what you're trying to remember has something completely bogus is Apple agreeing to license Leopard Server to run in a VM on Apple branded hardware :

http://blogs.vmware.com/vmtn/2008/01/virtual-leopa-1.html

So Leopard Server works in a VMWare environnement. A simple license change will enable anyone with a ESXi environnement to run OS X Server.

 

[kingtj]

Good info, but ....

I have a feeling that upper management at Apple weren't even all that aware of these advantages to XServes?

I mean, I've never seen Apple doing any advertising touting the cost savings benefits of XServes w/XSan vs. a 1U x86 Linux rack server and equivalent. I don't know that I've ever even heard Apple make any direct comparisons/contrasts of their server products to Linux offerings, period?

Ultimately, I suspect this was part of the problem, really. Apple has a pretty long history of only offering "server" products which were little more than re-badged desktop machines with different configurations inside. In the 80's, that was pretty standard practice in the whole industry. In the 90's, things got a LOT more complex on the "back end" and the growth of the Internet really made "server farms" take off, along with any "respectable company" putting together a rack of servers instead of a bunch of towers on shelves or desks. I'm not so sure Apple ever really followed that transition very closely, since their focus has always been more on the "end user" and their desire for portable devices and desktop systems. I get the idea that the XServe and XSan were just kind of assembled as a reactionary thing, when enough customers kept asking about high-end OS X servers to go with their Mac environments.

I'm not saying NOBODY at Apple understands the needs in the Enterprise server room. But I *am* saying the decision-makers like Steve Jobs himself probably don't, except at a very basic level. So they may have actually needed to pull the XServe and listen to people's reactions to figure out the right step to take next in that area. (It sounds like they just figured "This thing isn't selling too well... Let's see what happens if we pull it?")

As for OS X vs Linux, Xserves + Xsan tend to price lower than the 1U x86 + Linux + Stornext direct equivalent for a SAN. One could argue that opendirectory + kerberos (for single sign on etc) are easier to manage in OS X than Linux (or other unices in general).

In most datacenters, rackspace, powerdraw and cooling are charged directly. The mini takes less space, but is not so useful in SAN environments, the MacPro takes up at least 4 times as much rackspace (put horizontally) or 6 times as much (two fitted vertically in 12u).

All being said and done, I personally wouldn't put another Mac where I'd originally put an xserve. As it's almost the EOL date and I don't see visualization or "licensed to work on some sun fire box" alternatives, it unfortunately also means I'd need to find unix alternatives for the things I'd use OS X server for.

 

[calaverasgrande]

I work in IT

I work in IT for a living. I get a few free magazines about IT. I frequent a few IT centric websites. I have never seen an ad for xserve or OS X server. I think it is silly to push people off on the Mac Pro and mini. As mentioned previously they are not server rack friendly products. When I am helping setup or move a clients server room and see free standing crap that doesnt bolt into a rack directly or slide into a rail I get very annoyed.
Usually when you do see such free standing stuff its some legacy gear that is now used to auth RADIUS requests or for someone to console in remotely and administer stuff that doesnt go over IP on its own, like those blue cisco cables.
Honestly there are two kinds of gear in server rooms. There's the dirt cheap ASUS and Supermicro boxes that cost less than a grand even with drives, cpu and ram, usually loaded with Linux of course. The other kind are the Sun, IBM, Dell, HP etc servers. These cost a bit but are complete product lines unto themselves. They have manufacturer specific mounting hardware and usually some kind of manufacturer specific management software (that doesnt really work). Apple was never serious about servers. They never moved past their 1u server. They needed to bring out a 2u or 3u unit that could hold a lot of drives and host databases. They needed to bring out a blade server line as well.
Nobody is going to build a datacenter on a product line that consists of one product. IBM has eServers in 1ru up to 5ru. Dell, yes Dell makes everything from little 1RU servers up to 12RU blade server chassis.
There is also that for most small office server needs a mac mini or mac pro, or heck even a MBP can function just fine as a server.

I really wish they had gone the other direction and debuted a bigger Xserver with 2-4 CPUs, 2- drives in 2RU. Maybe even something modular that takes blades similar to how the mac pros CPUs work.

 

[AidenShaw]

Apple could have, but they didn't.

I really wish they had gone the other direction and debuted a bigger Xserver with 2-4 CPUs, 2- drives in 2RU. Maybe even something modular that takes blades similar to how the mac pros CPUs work.

Not likely - but if they cared at all about the server market they would have announced a partnership with one of the tier-1 x64 vendors to support Apple OSX Server under VMware ESX on a few x64 servers in the range from 1U to 6U - at the same time that they announced that they were discontinuing the weak Xserver line.

Instead, they suddenly announced the end of the Apple server line, and did a career-limiting move on any IT gal who's been lobbying for Apple OSX server in her organization.

If the Turtlenecked Overlord changes his mind and "saves" the Xserve or starts a partnership with a tier1 vendor to support Apple OSX Server on ESX - it's too late. Bridges burned. The "boot Apple out of the datacenter" plans are already in place.

Enterprise IT doesn't sign on to vendors run by a capricious, secretive megalomaniac - they want transparent access to roadmaps and ample advance notice of new systems and end-of-life situations.

 

[cmaier]

Not likely - but if they cared at all about the server market they would have announced a partnership with one of the tier-1 x64 vendors to support Apple OSX Server under VMware ESX on a few x64 servers in the range from 1U to 6U - at the same time that they announced that they were discontinuing the weak Xserver line.

Instead, they suddenly announced the end of the Apple server line, and did a career-limiting move on any IT gal who's been lobbying for Apple OSX server in her organization.

If the Turtlenecked Overlord changes his mind and "saves" the Xserve or starts a partnership with a tier1 vendor to support Apple OSX Server on ESX - it's too late. Bridges burned. The "boot Apple out of the datacenter" plans are already in place.

Enterprise IT doesn't sign on to vendors run by a capricious, secretive megalomaniac - they want transparent access to roadmaps and ample advance notice of new systems and end-of-life situations.

All true.

And yet IT in the giant enterprise I work for just announced they are going to support iPad and iPhone for email/calendaring and remote access via Citrix. We still run Windows XP and are a couple versions behind on Office - about as conservative as you can get.

Stevie may know something after all.

 

[MagnusVonMagnum]

If Apple licensed OSX Server to another hardware manufacturer (which makes perfect sense in any sane world), that would be like admitting that OSX in general COULD run on ANY generic, cheap PC hardware (and it can) and thus the world might recognize that Apple products are way overpriced (always have been to greater or lesser degrees) and that this idea that Apple products are somehow "magical" might be dispelled and you'd be left with a bunch of consumers demanding more reasonable prices and more configuration options. Something like that might just drive Jobs into a padded room.

Thus, it's better to burn bridges and make the professional world think you're a non-entity (nearly all their "Pro" products are being turned into consumer-orientated junk these days despite the "Pro" moniker) than give one ounce of control to another person over the Apple lineup. The loss of "Computer" in "Apple Computer" was the sign that Apple is no longer a serious computing company, but rather a consumer gadget company. The sad thing is that they have the resources to do it all well, but they simply don't do it and some of us know that's because Steve would have to let someone else largely control those divisions for them to get the attention they deserve and his ego simply won't allow that and so those areas suffer (from Servers to gaming support to keeping OSX up-to-date with OpenGL and the latest hardware and professional features while the programmers are all moved to do iOS instead of hiring more help and more managers to make sure they get things done. Apple could have its hands in everything, but they instead choose to limit themselves largely to smart phones and tablets these days while the computer division looks 2nd rate and a half decade behind in many areas (i.e. Lack of support for Blu-Ray, Gaming, latest OpenGL Versions and disappearing "pro" hardware with less options for the consumer than ever before with rising prices once again despite running on dirt cheap Chinese clone hardware). But they're making money so none of that matters...for now.

 

[calaverasgrande]

good point about roadmaps. Servers arent bought by consumers that walk in to an apple store. They are proposed by an IT dept manager or an outside consultant, approved by several layers of paper shufflers then signed off by an exec. This can take 6 3-6 months to go thru all these layers of red tape. I mean you need to spec out how much power you are going to need per rack, how much data cabling, the type of connection to the outside world, switched routers etc. These folks want to know if the server/blade/disk system will be around 12 months from now, and what the upgrade path is.
Even for Jack or Jill IT the process of filling out a PO for a server can take a few months to approve and is almost always contigent on some software package need. My guess is what has already been stated. The Unix heads out there already have Linux. Still. 10,000 units per quarter is not shabby for some networking/server products. If they had a broader line they would have done better. Or if they had advertised at all!