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first post, first post! I'm giddy but have nothing to say but I have first post

Apple needs a few more sales like that and maybe we will start to see market share growth.

Ryan: yes, we will see market share growth if the public finds out about it, and is told why Apple computers are different, but more importantly, why they are better.

If that does not happen, then it will only be a minor bump.

Ok to celebrate for 15 seconds, but then Apple needs to get back to work!

Kenh: true. That is why we need more big sales; maybe then mainstream media will notice and finally be far and inclusive in their reporting.

AWESOME.

600 square feet! that fits in my apartment!

wow... cheapest, fastest, and now, smallest.

what's next, apple?

Congratulations Apple.

A bit off topic, but what is the progress on the FedEx deal that was talked about a few months back?

kenh,

fedex, which just completed the purchase of Kinkos is in the process of cleaning out all Macs in said stores, though this process started before the acquisition. I walked into the one location where I used to work and they had just installed Panther! The wierd thing is, they said it was useless cause you could not print because the network did not recognize it. Seems like they still don't know how to compile their custom Mac OS packages.

Finally Uncle Sam is spending money wisely!! I am a proud American right now!

Yes yes yes yes.

Now lets just have someone spend $50,000,000 on a G5 HPC and it would be the fastest in the world and still loads cheaper than the Earth simulator.

*WHAM* take that Intel.
*Bam* take that Windows HPC.


MUAHHAHAHAAA

Keep em coming

These clusters are gonna clean out all the high-end chips! And they still won't be able to do what Rutan can at a fraction of the cost. Anyway... good coup!

Nice.

looks like XServes will be on back order.... for a while.

VERY COOL....
At this rate, Macs will becoming the darling of the high-end enterprise. That would be just too funny after all the crap IT departments have been spewing about Macs all these years.
Yes, yes, we're not nearly there yet, but let's enjoy our victories...
LOL!

as for market share growth..

it would be so cool if PC users could firewire into a new mac (like the power mac) and bring up an App.. on the Mac monitor to choose what to transfer (with checkboxes.. documents, songs, movies, emails etc) and then simply have it transfer all information to the new Mac...

Come on.. how gorgeous would that be..

the kicker is, like the WMA-AAC thing.. windows users would have little opportunity to go back the other direction....

Great news for Apple, but I sorta feel bad for VT. They got their supercomputer ranked and then dissasembled for upgrade which was delayed. They are no longer on the top 500 list and now they have to expect to be bumped down by yet another G5 cluster when they return. The only positive thing about it is they got lots of exposure and awards.

Schwiiing.

The Army or the Pentagon had a Mac 9 web server a few years ago. Just goes to show that trial leads to adoption.

stock prices anyone?

This one deserves a TV commercial...

DV

VT will still be in the top 5 after they get re-assembled. This is a great Marquee account for Apple. I hope they milk it for all it's worth. Should certainly give everyone who poo pooed the "fastest personal computer in the world" ads pause. So we have good marquee accounts in education with VT for supercomputer, Tokyo University for overall adoption, this for Government supercomputer, now we need 3 more: A Government account that standardizes on Macs for user stations, A business account that does a supercomputer cluster, and a well known large business account that standardizes on Macs (Fed Ex would be perfect - when it absolutely positively HAS to be there overnight)

Eaxit? What is this about Kinkos "cleaning out" Macs? Does this mean eliminating? or revamping into OS X Panther? Do you have a link?

Anyway, congratulations Apple. Keep this up (and please start advertising OS X)

I think what eaxit meant was cleaning up all the junk installed on the Macs and servicing them. Kinko's Macs, like any public computer that are not properly configured, invite people to do nasty things like installing crap or deleting necessary files. eaxit mentioned that Fedex were installing Panther. I don't think they would do that if they are getting rid of them.

They will be using the built-in Ethernet for networking these XServes. VT used fibre-optic PCI cards and these contributed to the performance of the system. I wonder if 15 Terraflops will be achieved with the slower network connections.

Re: mike
"it would be so cool if PC users could firewire into a new mac (like the power mac) and bring up an App.. on the Mac monitor to choose what to transfer (with checkboxes.. documents, songs, movies, emails etc) and then simply have it transfer all information to the new Mac..."

This program has been around since Jaguar- its called Move2Mac made by Detto. Only it installs on the PC and is via a special USB cable.

http://www.apple.com/switch/howto/move2mac/
http://www.detto.com/move2mac/

What Apple really needs is a simple migration tool like this an old Mac to a new Mac. I know for many of us it is simple via target disk mode, but there are many non-newbie Mac users who still have know idea how to do this, and get very confused with more than one Finder window open.

At least Apple has added this migration tool in the new Mac OS X Setup Assistant for the newest G5s, but it would be simple enough to just add it as a stand-alone free utility for the rest of the product line.
http://www.apple.com/macosx/upgrade/upgradetonewmac.html

Phil Schilller is a walking commercial:
-------------------------------"Apple is honored that COLSA chose the Xserve G5 to build their supercomputer cluster," said Philip Schiller, Apple's senior vice president of Worldwide Product Marketing in the press release. "The ground breaking 64-bit performance and incredible I/O capabilities of the Xserve G5, combined with the reliability and scalability of our UNIX-based Mac OS X Server software deliver high performance computing solutions perfect for anyone looking to cluster from two to thousands of nodes, at an unbeatable price."
---------------------------------


Come on Phil. You're not a robot and we all know it. Why don't you just say "we're honored, it's a great investment, both companies have everything to gain/nothing to lose" etc...

That guy needs help.

There's going to be a lot of super-glue and duct-tape in that lot, eh Sputnik? Better invest in Loctite shares.

Well at least this proves that Apple is making more than just iPods. ^_^

Does anyone else find it funny that a bleeding heart liberal like Steve Jobs, is going to be providing computers to the military to develop and test weapons systems? I'm glad the army sees the value in the Xserve and hopefully it will lead to more and more contracts for Apple to help spread Macs into the mainstreet consciousness. I just find it ironic that the profits from this sale will probably find their way into some tree-hugger charity or something.

I really did mean that Kinkos is cleaning out ALL their Macs. They are replacing them with Wintel boxes from Dell. They are leaving one Mac per store to run a few mac only apps. that people might bring in. When I was there, we had 5 macs in the store. Now there are three and they are over 3 years old, and there is no sign of renewing leases on most of them. I have heard similar sentiments from other locations as well since I still hang out with some of the Kinkoids.

It's sad, you'd think Kinkos would be the poster-child for a corporation running OS X. But, I guess you can't beat $400 drone PCs from Dell.

From Sol. . ."I wonder if 15 Terraflops will be achieved with the slower network connections."

. . ."It is expected to deliver a peak performance capability of more than 25 TFlops/second"

Glaken,

Yeah, maybe they can design me a gun with which I can blow away redneck pin brains.

Have you seen the light? No? Maybe it's because your head is up your arse.

The army is a great and necessary institution, don't confuse its function with its misuse.

The best part about this is not that they are using X serves, but that they are using X serves with OS X Server. This will help other corporations riding the fence to jump from the Winux bandwagon to the Apple Ferrari cart that is speeding by them. If the media were able to let themselves report this, this could actually be big news and penetrate the public skepticism, but I won't be holding my breath.

Panther????

what about Tiger?

I was hoping Tiger would be 64bit. I guess not.

As for a company buying G5's... Pixar would be a great place to start. They can upgrade their renderfarm to Xserves. By doing that, Pixar would be able to save space and maybe even get more publicity by making the Top 500's list.

Boeing is on the list 3 times. And they only use their system for design work.

AL:
Pixar announced a 1-2 months ago that they were switching over to Macs/G5s. Somehow, I don't think that will increase Mac credibility (people were usually shocked to learn they DIDN'T use Macs give SJ).

how does this help market share? Apple needs to design a computer that is affordable and competitive for less than $1000. And, oh yeah, build enough of them so there isn't a waiting list and well enough so there aren't huge recalls. Mike Dell can. Steve Jobs can't.

These servers, at $3704 per copy, are a nice sale, and have nothing to do with any of us, unless we are trying to figure out how to fly fast. You macophile morons are missing the big picture. I have a dozen friends who are switchable, and I can't recommend a single mac desktop to them.

mark G.:
"how does this help market share?"

You've got to be kidding, right? But in case you really are...uh, "challenged," here you go:
--First, servers are PART OF the "market", this is a very substantial sale, and--like VT, but more so--will create credibility for Apple in this part of the market, probably leading to more sales. (This part is the basics.)
--Second, most of the desktop purchases today are made (or "guided") by IT departments in large corporate, government, or academic environments. These folks have not taken Macs seriously for a long time. They do, however, respect the higher-end "enterprise" side market and will probably take seriously a company whose products compete successfully in that part of the market. While I actually agree with you that Apple needs cheaper, expandable desktop Mac as an option, by itself that won't sway a lot of IT folks. Through a variety of new products in the last year, Apple is clearly making a play for the enterprise, even if (wisely) a quiet one. This is GOOD!
OK, sorry for sounding a little snide, but how could you diss such great news, even if Apple has not yet done EVERYTHING it needs to?

I have to agree with both mark and Mac User. On the cheaper computer side of the argument...just two weeks ago, my Mom was in the market to buy a computer for my sister, but she wasn't willing to spend more than $500 on a computer because she was buying two of them, the other for my stepfather's grandkids that don't have much of anything. So she had to keep the price low, as she was buying two and didn't want to spend more on my sister than the grandkids. You can see it already what happened. I of course voiced my opinion that Mac is better and tried to steer her toward an eMac. Even with a educational discount, that was over $800 out the door. So I was forced to actually look for PC's online at Wal-Mart, Best Buy, etc. I found an eMachine that had a 60G hard drive, 2.7Ghz Celeron, 512mb RAM, that came with a monitor, keyboard, mouse, and speakers for $450 on sale. That is nearly half of what an eMac is. I know, Mac is certainly better in all regards, but for $450, even for a PC, you have to admit that's a pretty good deal.

The problem is two things. Unfamiliarity and price. My Mom had no clue (well, she doesn't know much about comps anyway) what a Mac is. I had a friend last week who didn't even know what iTunes was. Here I sent this long email about trying to get album art for mp3's of his band, and he didn't even know what iTunes was!! Then the price. Let's face it, if a consumer is unfamiliar with Macs, they sure as hell aren't going to spend the extra money on them. I switched last year, jumping into the Mac world because of iTunes for Windows. I seen that program right after my friend had bought a G4...and I decided to get a G5. I have never looked back. But until then, I always thought Macs were for some sort of hippie elitists or something. I originally told my friend that there was no way I was going to buy one, mostly because I was unawares. When he talked about it, I could see that he really wanted to get it through my head that they were better, but he didn't want to push it too much. Then I test drove his G4 and I have been a user ever since.

Then last week another friend finally bought a legal copy of Windoze and put it on his comp. I come over and he's asking me how to rip mp3's into Windoze Media Player! What! Get with the program!

Ok, back to the discussion about the XServe stuff!>>>

Then last week another friend finally bought a legal copy of Windoze and put it on his comp. I come over and he's asking me how to rip mp3's into Windoze Media Player! What! Get with the program!

Thats very easy with a little programe called iTunes

"Thats very easy with a little programe called iTunes "

Yeah, I figured that was understood to the average reader of these columns

To the morons who are using this news to complain that desktop Macs are too expensive: THIS NEWS HAS NOTHING TO DO with desktops, home computers, your Halo game, or the wet dream TV commercials you hope to see with a Mac covered in Victoria Secret underwear! This is about a military supercomputer cluster, and any connection you keep trying to establish between this news and desktop Mac retail prices is wholly ludicrous. Apple isn't always about the home Mac geek or iPod user.

So instead of this dumbass actually talking about the supercomputer that he knows so much about, he takes precious time out of his day to explain to us what the topic is. Thank you. It's all summed up in this sentecne: "These servers, at $3704 per copy, are a nice sale, and have nothing to do with any of us, unless we are trying to figure out how to fly fast."

So for us average Mac computer users, we decided to talk a minute about the market share, as most of us know little to nothing about supercomputers, nor do we really care. Other than it's good news for Apple. IS THIS OK WITH YOU?

Are you, Mr. Hemorrhoid Rage, trying to figure out how to fly? I figured that if you were, you probably wouldn't be taking time out of your busy schedule to stop in to remind us of the topic at hand.

Please, continue with the conversation of the supercomputer that we are all so involved in because like, uh, it affects us and stuff. Go on ahead, talk about supercomputers now. Yeah, because that's what us Mac forum people who keep up with this type of information do. We work on supercomputers. What a dumbass.

Hey Gary,
How about we talk about first posts, or hey-- the dimbulb that George W. Bush is! Those seem to be the most popular topics here. I'm saying that taking a topic about a supercomputer and turning it into yet another reason to complain about how Steve Jobs prices a frickin' iMac is a seriously stupid stretch. And since we're all about voicing our opinions, I'm telling you mine, dumbass. That okay with you?! Or do I need a permission slip from you to use my keyboard, turdball?

gary and roid should get a room. anyone know how much this decision is based on winblows security holes? i thought microsoft had some sort of exclusive deal with homeland security, which i thought would also affect the army's purchases? don't know much about this so don't slam me, but it looks to me like uncle sam is tired of winblows screwing things up.

This is great news for X-Serve, although it needs to be noted that this is a research facility and not a mission-critical working part of the military. When they have a bit more experience witht the platform and see how efficient, reliable and stable it is, other government branches will no doubt be prepared to give Apple and the Mac a go.

A few years back the Navy converted a couple of destroyers to a fully integrated system running Windows. Trouble was that when they got the inevitable BSOD, the whole ship shut down. In the Navy, it was said that windows NT stood for "Needs Towing"...

I seriously hope this isn't off topic for ol' Roid boy. He might get pissed off.

I was on a Destroyer, and I can honestly say the networking on them suck. I don't know if it's the same one or not, but either way, the whole ship ran off of Windows, and it was horrible. Especially for USB, because NT doesn't recognize USB.

As for ol' Hemorrhoid...I think you should change your name to 'Roid Rage...kind of like road rage...yeah, that sounds better.

Thanks for agreeing with me Mac User. I don't know why you refer to IT folks, since the dumb terminal isn't the point...a good expandable desktop for home is. If the installed household base is 15%, as some think, there is a lot of room to grow. An effective entry level computer would eventually be unignorable by those IT folks, and then a true halo effect to the corporate world might follow.

But, like I said, its a lot easier to wire up a bunch of xservers together than to market, produce, and support something we need.......apparently.