Help Save the Xserve!

[Bret Williams]

Actually not many depended on the xserve. About 10,000 a quarter sold. So you’re looking at a tough battle.

[Juan Madrigal]

That’s one of the biggest misperceptions. The ones that depend on the Xserves are the clients who connect to it.

10,000 may be sold per quarter but, the figure that should be looked at is the amount of clients that connect to each Xserve that is sold.

Why is this important? Well in order to support a large deployment of Mac desktops you need Xserves to properly manage them and provide vital services.

Large deployments of Mac desktops depend on the Xserve. Without an Xserve it is difficult to justify purchasing large amounts if Mac desktops which will hurt Apple sales.

Apple needs to develop more complete solutions around the Xserve an properly market them in order to take advantage of this halo effect in the enterprise. So yea many DO depend on the Xserve. Instead if counting Xserve sales count the clients that each Xserve supports.

[Mark Petereit]

You want to save the XServe? BUY THEM!

[Crickets chirping]

Yeah, that’s what I thought.

[Juan Madrigal]

A new order of 50 is waiting to go through in the purchasing department. They might be cancelled with news though.

[Mark Suszko]

I thought the slow sales were because there are many other DIY and alternative means to set up networking now. Was xserve the victim of individual macs being *too* good, or easy to share? Or was it more a case of a product that had a hard time fitting into the cultural mindset of the rest of the company?

[Devin Crane]

I agree, I don’t like them being discontinued. At least come up with something better than a mac-mini sever and something smaller than the Mac Pro. I wouldn’t be surprised to see a mac mini server come out with the new light speed technology as a replacement however. This would solve most issues for Mac Mini’s and iMacs alike and is probably the reason we see a lack of support for USB3 from Apple at this time. Lightspeed is suppose to be introduced early next year.

[Mark Maness]

Juan… Apple is just doing away with the Xserve device. Its a box that runs OSX Server software. Yeah… Its footprint was very nice for server application rooms but Apple isn’t killing the whole server market, just a device that has obviously poor sales.

You can still purchase a Mac Pro Server (much larger than the Xserve) or a Mac Mini Server (albeit that adding drives is an issue with this solution).

Apple has never been the powerhouse they dreamed of in the networking department. Times are tough and tough decisions have been made. You can still buy existing stock and Apple will still support them for some time to come.

_______________________________

Wayne Carey
Schazam Productions
https://web.mac.com/schazamproductions
schazamproductions@mac.com

[Juan Madrigal]

The issue is that it will be harder to justify Apple based server solutions and desktops without the Xserve.
The Mac Pro and Mini “Servers” are not adequate solutions, they were not designed for the server room.

There’s a great write up on Macworld: https://www.macworld.com/article/155501/2010/11/xserve.html

As far as the times being tough, Apple is doing pretty well and can easily support the Xserve. If they refocused on making out of the box solutions built on Final Cut Server, Quicktime Server, Podcast producer and other server tech along with proper marketing and support they can do very well.

Out of the box solutions for the following come to mind:
– Video on demand/Web Streaming (with a web front end/CMS)
– Final Cut Server/XSAN (node based workflows to push to other services aside from mentioned; think Vantage)
– Lecture Capture/Learning Management System integration
– Digital Signage
– Easy to use Render farms
– Going after Exchange Server and Active Directory
– Improved Mac Desktop Management
– Xgrid
– Smart Classroom design/Room Control
– Complete solution for Point of Sales with a web front end

[Mark Petereit]

I want Apple to reinvent the server the way they reinvented the tablet.

[Gary Adcock]

[Juan Madrigal] “Help Save the Xserve!”

No way, no how.

RIP.

gary adcock
Studio37

Post and Production Workflow Consultant
Production and Post Stereographer
Chicago, IL

https://blogs.creativecow.net/24640