“The announcement of Apple’s new dual-core Power Mac G5s last month was a much needed shot-in-the-arm for the company’s desktop lineup but the new chips left a gaping hole in the product line. The machines that arguably need the increased horsepower that the dual-core chips provide the most—Apple’s Xserve—we’re passed over for the promotion. There are a couple of theories as to why the Xserve hasn’t gone dual-core just yet,” Jason O’Grady blogs for ZDNet.
O’Grady outlines his reasons in the full article here.
Advertisement: Apple server solutions: Xserve G5. Xserve RAID. Xsan. Mac OS X Server 10.4 Tiger.
Related MacDailyNews articles:
Xserve, Xserve RAID, Xsan make Apple a player in enterprise computing – November 08, 2005
Coming Tuesday, Nov. 15th.
“Coming Tuesday, Nov. 15th.”
i can dig it.
he makes an interesting point in his whole article, but I think it would be a better foot in the business door, which apple needs, to release an intel Xserve before an intel PB.
Yes! Yes! Intel Powerbooks!
And all the colored girls go, “Do-do-do-do-dit-doh!”
I wonder what Intel chip they’ll use in the XServes? The Itanium has had lots of problems so I’d be surprised it that was it. The Xeon perhaps? I haven’t seen anything about server chips in their next generation processors so maybe there’s one in there that will be better than either of the others?
“He makes an interesting point in his whole article, but I think it would be a better foot in the business door, which apple needs, to release an intel Xserve before an intel PB.”
I disagree. I think Apple needs to make sure their existing markets are satisfied first. Then they can focus their sights on new markets. Besides, the G5 is a kick-ass chip – they don’t need to rush to switch those over to Intel right now. The G4, while good (disregarding the system bus), pales in comparison to the Pentium M – seeing how the notebook market is the one that’s growing at a faster rate than the desktop market, I think Apple needs to bring their portables over to Intel before anything else.
Maybe it has something to do with the eternal problem apple has always had with every chip supplier?
Inadequate supply of chips.
I doubt Apple is getting the number of chips they want from IBM, who has always been abused by apple in their chip relationship, and isn´t bend over backwards to give them everytthing they´ve got since their faces are still dripping with egg.
Apple had to decide to give the dual core to one or the other, or face massive delays on both. it chose powermacs.
my next guess is that they sold powermacs because xserve sales are probably nearly dead. i don´t expect the osborn effect to hit apple in general, but who would buy servers right before they are going to become much more compatible with every one else´s servers? business are smart enough not too. Designers who know that these machines will run FCP, motion, shake, maya, photoshop, aperture, basically everything they need at a blistering pace for a couple years and that these machines will do so without the risk of intel switch hicoughs are too smart not to buy a dual g5 powermac now.
Apple sells a comparatively small number of servers vs iBook, powerbooks and maybe even MacMini. The cost to retool the server right now for DualCore could not be recouped before retooling for Intel. I’d be surprised if we see any major server upgrades until the Intel powered model comes out.
To the many people posting here who are frothing at the mouth in anticipation of the first Mac-Intels, a question for you to ponder–
What does the (so-called) “Trusted – Computing” aspect of the proposed (Apple) Intel chips — mean to your privacy ?
For me — Intel has always been the enemy, especially since the “Fingerprint” fiasco of the early Pentium 4s
Before I give-in to “Trusted Computing” — Intel must gain my trust
Since OSX 10.5 (Leopard) will (presumably) run on PPC — I have plenty of time to make up my mind about the Mac Intels — there is no urgency to switch
We will buy a few dual core Xserves when they are available. The only reason I can think of as to why there aren’t any right now is that IBM can’t deliver the dual cores in enough quantity to start shipping the Xserve with dual core modules. The supporting engineering should be minimal.
While we’re at it. It’s a shame that the big INTEL announcement has left Apple without any wiggle room chipwise. That new PowerPC low power chip (if they ship) would make for one dynamite powerbook, and it wouldn’t have to use the overly complicated Cell processor to do it.
It seams that all of you have forgotten that Apple stated that they will continue with PPC chips for some time to come. Universal binaries allow Apple to use whatever chip they want. If IBM starts making a really kick ass chip for notebooks, then Apple can use it without any problem (so to speak). It will take the developer community to help Apple along by compiling universal binaries.
MW: plant
The answer is : When IBM will ship more dual core PPC…
Server technology is ALWAYS behind desktop/workstation technology.
That’s because companies don’t want the cutting edge FASTEST, they want what WORKS. Until Apple has enough data to be able to tell a customer what the Mean Time Between Failure is for the dual core set up using their server chipset, there are very few companies that would bite.
Reliability is much more important in the server market than speed.
i wrote an entry explaining why you were wrong about being able to switch back. then MDN deleted it because i messed up on their magic word. grrr. it was good too.
you are wrong about that. apple wouldnt do it for many business reasons.