“On November 5th, 2010, Apple killed the Xserve,” Thomas Brand writes for Egg Freckles. “At the time I thought killing the Xserve was a mistake. Like so many thousand Macintosh IT Professionals I thought Apple’s future in the Enterprise was tied to the existence of a shiny 1U rack-mountable Macintosh server. Without it how would the PC System Administrators ever take us seriously?”
“Looking back it is easy to see that Apple made the right choice,” Brand writes. “By killing the Xserve we have better Macs, phones, tables, and Apple TVs today. Mac OS X is stronger without the Xserve. Because instead of getting trickle down technologies from its server OS, Mac OS X got better battery life, and millions of new users from its phone operating system. Take that Microsoft. It is funny to think that the death of the Xserve, and not because of it, Apple now has more Macs in the enterprise than ever before. PC System Administrators eat your hearts out.”
Much more in the full article here.
Killing off servers that Apple should have running their 5 plus server farms make no sense. You would think that Apple could not do more than 1 or 2 things at a time!!! Apple already had and still offers the server software. So, what is the issue with holding on to what you already developed. At some point, Apple is going to have to explain why they are using another computer company’s servers in their server farms.
I can only think of a few big miss steps that Apple made over the many years I have used Apple products and this was one of them.
This thinking that Apple can’t do more than 1 thing at a time is why AAPL is trading so low today.
I’m sure OS X Server is great for small businesses and schools, who’ll use features like wiki server, file sharing, calendar and mail syncing. But does that make it a good match for Apple’s data centers? Apple needs the best distributed server network to quickly and reliably serve billions of iCloud and iTunes customers.
Other companies can go on ideological crusades against the reliability of Linux web servers at their own peril. The success of iCloud and the iTunes store is too important to Apple for the let pride delude them into eating their own dog food in the server room.
The long and short of it is, Xserve and Xserve RAID, while profitable, weren’t nearly profitable enough to be worth the engineering and management attention required to keep them around. The same engineers who designed the Xserve hardware (which sells in the thousands) can also design the next iMac (millions) or iPhone (tens of millions). I miss the Xserve too, but killing it was the right business decision.
-jcr
I agree. I just don’t see Apple catering to the enterprise market. Linux, and other flavors of Unix, is better for enterprise and IT. (Windows should be used by no one 😉 ). Apple should stay with what they do best, and that is making great consumer products such as the iPhone, and the Macintosh.
servers are commodities and subject to small margins. Apple couldn’t compete and Linux will do for most.
Actually, Apple was competing very well in the server space, and when they killed the Xserve RAID, they were already the #3 storage vendor, and would have been #1 in another two years or so. However, the whole storage business still isn’t in the same league as Apple’s consumer products.
-jcr
When Apple moves into the Enterprise market the stock will double. They can build a better server.
When you fail buck up and try again, or, according to this author, quit and make excuses.
I’m really not good at dancing… It’s not my thing, and I don’t like it, anyway. But, according to you I should just “buck up and keep trying”, at the expensive of the all the other things I really care about. Right?
Quit. You’re a quitter. You’re good a quitting. Quit before you even start. That will confirm your lack of will and perseverance.
On the contrary, I’m not a quitter at all… I just don’t do things unless A) I want to do them, B) they’re rewarding, and C) I’m either exceptional at them, or I feel I can be exceptional at them.
Since I don’t like dancing, it’s not rewarding, and I’m not exceptional at it, I choose not to do it. That doesn’t make me a quitter; rather, it makes me discriminating and selective about my pursuits.
By your logic, you must still be actively doing everything you’ve every tried. If not, you’re a quitter.
All the will and perseverance in the world doesn’t make up for lack of talent, and we can’t all be exceptional at everything.
Lots and lots of competition in the wholesale server market.
From my shareholder’s point of view, Apple’s attitude seems to be completely unreasonable. Of course, I’m not allowed to see Apple’s future plans, but presently Apple’s future looks very murky with Android standing in the way. Apple is paring its hardware business down to almost nothing and Wall Street says the company is relying too much on one product. The iPod line is now less than useless in terms of revenue and growth. AppleTV remains some hobby. I don’t know what sales are going to be like for the new Mac Pro and I don’t have a good feeling about it.
Apple is sitting on a mountain of reserve cash and I just don’t get it. The company is scaring off big investors and it just appears to be stagnating. Apple doesn’t want to be bothered with a push into the enterprise yet with Android clogging nearly the entire consumer market I don’t see where the growth is and I doubt anyone else sees it either.
Apple may have some grand plan but who knows for sure. If Apple gets into the processor designing business, I guess they could develop low-power server processors for enterprise use but that’s a stretch. I see Apple’s current growth as a question mark if it just continues to go head to head with Android in the consumer market. I truly believe they have to look elsewhere for growth and the enterprise seems like a good place to start in terms of selling more hardware.
Apple’s future is no more “murky” than Google’s, Amazon’s, or any other company’s, and Google isn’t “standing in the way” of anything. If anything, Apple is very much “standing in the way” of Google!
– The Apple TV is the #8 best seller in the electronics category on Amazon. I don’t think it’s so much a hobby anymore.
– The traditional iPod has been superseded by the iPod touch and is also being cannibalized by iPhone and iPad sales. In case you haven’t noticed, the iPad and iPhone are selling very well.
– The sales trends have reversed, and Android is trending down, while iPhone is trending up.
– Android isn’t “clogging the entire consumer market”. Android is clogging the no-margin, no-profit, low end of the consumer market. Apple is still making excellent, industry-leading profit margins selling to more discerning customers with money to spend.
Of course Apple’s current growth is a question mark; they don’t tell you what they’re doing next year, let alone two or three years from now! Did you just start following Apple this year?
Apple have just reverted to the company that they have been for most of their existence, only the early years and for about 8 or so more recently have they been a massive growth company but those opportunities are limited and have to be harvested as opportunities offer themselves but until then to be a stable high profit business dominating profit in its main markets is a pretty good place to be.
Apple is different. Many people don’t get Apple. Perhaps those people should invest in companies that they understand, like Microsoft 🙂
Apple’s future growth will come from those that are buying Android devices now. They will see the error of their purchase and flock to Apple in a year or two. It’s already happening with the last round of Android buyers!
I still think it was a stupid idea……now that MDM is more popular and iOS being popular now would be the time to have the Xserve to support its devices or help IT support apple devices. Instead Apple is handing this over to third parties and making it more expensive to support Macs having to buy the software and support for it. Apple needs to bring back the Xserve or let OS X and Server run on VMWare on PC hardware. One of these things need to happen in the IT world!!!
Correct me if I’m wrong, but isn’t running Mac under VMWare on PCs already doable? I’ve seen many how-to articles on how to do this in the past, but I doubt Apple sanctions it.
AFAIK, all the server-stuff, they buy COTS from HP, IBM, NetApp, Cisco etc. – at huge discounts most likely.
They aren’t Google, who even make their own Switches.
Personally, I was never that interested in actually owning X-Serve HW.
Apple is a consumer products company, not business. They will never seriously compete in the business world which sucks but they’ve chosen that path and so be it. They don’t have the infrastructure to support businesses who need 24x7x365 running on 5 9’s. Sorry but true. I love my iPhone but they’ll never replace big iron and their own shops prove it.
That is just a dumb statement. I’m sitting in a big ‘ol corporate environment with a hundred other users all on Macs, working on images for companies you have all heard of. This is big business, and with the exception of the number pushers, we all insist on using Macs. The kind of computer a business uses is the one that gets the job done most efficiently and profitably, and any manager going around saying you can’t have a Mac because it’s a “toy” is an idiot.
Apple could easily offer 5 9’s if they wanted. They supposedly need to for iCloud. But even if we accept your theory that this is not Apple’s forte, there are tons of businesses that don’t need 5 9s, they are not telcos or banks, but they still would love to run Apple servers in their server room. This killing xserve was nuts, because even if the profit isn’t huge, it keeps everyone in the apple fold.
This guy has his head in one too many clouds. Jeezy Peezy. Apple stuck their foot in the Enterprise, but they need to jump with both feet or stay out. And they will need a lot of help to even make that jump. In addition, there has to be a need for Mac servers, which anyone who has worked with Apple server knows, there isn’t much need for yet. Mac Server is still a “hobby”.
Apple could build a great 1U server, and their customers could run Linux on it. Apple could still deliver a great hardware experience for enterprise customers.
However, if Apple built a great OS X server, then w’d all get the benefit of the improved networking and virtualization services they’d need to compete with Linux.
I never understood why there needed to be a Macintosh version of a network server. All a server does it give me the files I need to work on and then I give them back. Why do we need beautiful hardware for something that sits in a closet? My home network server an awesome Synology unit that just does it’s job, no fuss no muss and I manage it through a Safari window. Best of both worlds.
Enterprise servers resemble optical disks.
Apple’s strength is in the user experience. This does not translate well to large server installations where rack-mounted servers run silently 24×7 and dollars per concurrent user is the main factor in hardware selection.
Apple instead focused on the small business user, making OS/X server on Mac Minis both inexpensive and easy to implement with acceptable performance and low power consumption.
A possible extension of this strategy is to bundle multiple Mac Minis in a single chassis, like a mini blade-server. You could probably squeeze quite a few minis into a 1RU chassis, but where is the demand for high powered apple servers?
One of the major uses for servers used to be the provision of network storage, but this is now better served by NAS boxes. If you need lots of grunt to serve up database enquiries Linux handles this quite well on vanilla hardware. You could also deploy a Mac Pro, or two, with OS/X server.
Time will tell. When the demand is there, Apple will make a box to suit. In the meantime Macs in large corporations play well with Office, SQL server and other entrenched Microsoft technologies running on Intel boxes.
Gawd. I am not going to thrash through exactly why Apple gave up on the Enterprise, yet again. It’s a long, torturous history. But I will point out that Apple didn’t have enough demand for the hardware, nor enough income from OS X Server to stay in the market. That was an Apple hobby that didn’t adequately pan out.
Meanwhile, having a decent Apple server is as easy as getting a mid-range Mac Mini, free Mavericks and tossing in a few bucks more for Mavericks Server. It’s not as powerful as OS X Server used to be, but it’s reasonable for most uses and hella-cheaper than the Microsoft dreck alternative.
“I am not going to thrash through exactly why”. Thank you, brevity is kindness…
But those of us with a multitude of Macs still need to manage them. SUS is a prime example of a server function that is still needed. There are some services that you need a server for.
All in all, I concur with you.
I haven’t bothered to update to Server for Mavericks yet. Considering the thoroughly devastating reviews it’s getting at the Mac App Store, I may have a long wait. I have NEVER seen such scathing reviews of Apple software. Even the recent patch for Server was slammed. That’s Apple being self-destructive. What?!
Clearly, Apple is not eating its own dog food regarding Server. Not a good thing.
Apple killed them off because they were not consumer products.
Apple is no longer primarily a computer company, but a consumer electronics company. The X-serve doesn’t fit into that new business model.
but if.. you already have several xserves up and running, out of warranty and aging. Then you just replace it all with what exactly? the competition… Please mac minis are not even close to an xserve,link aggregation, fibre, dual power supplies, expansion slots.
BS. The logic used in this article is absurd on the face of it.
Discontinuing a rack-mountable product line did absolutely NOTHING to improve any of Apple’s other products.
On the other hand, it created a small market for 3rd party manufacturers to make adapters so that the old Mac Pros could be rack-mounted, taking up vastly more space than would normally be required of an enterprise server — further upping the price and complicating the lives of people who have to justify such costs to their bosses.
Now Apple’s forthcoming server-grade machine is going cylindrical, which will only drive another round of 3rd-party rack mount accessories. So again, Apple drives up the end user’s rack costs, Apple makes no additional money on the installation, and the resulting Mac looks like a round peg in a rectangular hole — with a rat’s nest of Thunderbolt cables yanking on the back of the CPU. Have Apple designers never set foot in a mobile studio, a recording booth, etc? Apparently not.
Apple, you have the resources you need to make a rack-mountable machine and a mid-range internally-expandible PCI-supporting tower without compromising any of your existing products. Both of these are mainstay configurations in huge industries. What’s stopping you, Apple?
This is the stupidest article I ever read. Was the old Xserve not as great as it should have been? Perhaps. That’s not a reason to kill it, that’s a reason to make it better. Has apple survived without Xserve. Sure, but they are still unable to penetrate the enterprise as well as they otherwise would with their great and virtually free server OS, than if they had a proper rack computer. Did killing Xserve give us better iPhones and macs? Of course not. Apple is a half trillion dollar company, they don’t have to spread themselves thin to make one more great product. How many computer models does Dell have? Tons more than Apple.
No, this is intellectual laziness on Apple’s part. They looked at the numbers like a bean counter, not like someone planning for a great Apple future. Shame on you Apple. Usually you make a great product because the market needs a great product and ignore the numbers. This time you failed us.
The Xserve was a noisy monster with poor onboard storage capacity options. The Xserve RAID, which was very reasonably priced for its time, was pretty solid but was expensive to upgrade if only because of the damned drive carriers.
But that said, both devices were solid and super easy to access and repair. All the Xserves I know about are either still working to this day or were retired because of insufficient storage capacity. None of them that I know about failed, though I’m sure it must have happened somewhere.
Apple’s abandonment of the Xserve presaged the stupification of OS X Server. 10.6 Server was well documented and highly configurable. 10.7 Server and beyond? You’re on your own. Hope it works ok for you.
Apple totally surrendered the server market to Microsoft when they could have pressed the issue and diminished another one of Microsoft’s revenue streams. The rising popularity of Apple devices could have carried OS X Server along with it. Apple could have created hardware with more storage capacity and better management tools that IT professionals could trust.
Instead, I have to explain to new Apple business enthusiasts that the Mac Mini is their only real option. They will need to get third party storage if they need more than 1TB. Also don’t think about using the Mail server. And don’t trust the Wiki for anything important. And the Calendar server doesn’t have any graceful way to share a global calendar to all users so don’t plan on that. The Profile Manager is a toy compared to the commercial MDM services. If the power supply goes out, you’ll just have to buy a new Mini and I’ll try to restore from backup. Not exactly a ringing endorsement. It is pretty good for simple file sharing though.
So discontinuing the Xserve wasn’t a terrible idea, but they didn’t offer a real alternative. Kind of like discontinuing Final Cut Pro with the X version in such a sorry state. Professionals were relying on that software. When Apple does this kind of thing, it causes much more damage to them than producing marginally profitable server hardware.
Apple should have continued production of the Xserve because it fit their philosophy of making “the whole widget” in our networked society. Obviously, the Xserve product line could not be as profitable as the consumer products, but the Xserves were good at hosting content for iOS devices, and the form factor was good for network centers, so they played an important role in the Apple ecosystem. Linux and Windows servers can handle many of these tasks, but the Xserve was a more natural fit for some things, like sending push notifications or graphics processing.
it was a mistake to kill Xserve.