# Apple Discontinues Xserve, Only Available Until January 31st



## Ottawaman (Jan 16, 2005)

> As noted by MacGeneration, Apple has announced it will be discontinuing the Xserve as of January 31, 2011. The note appears on Apple's site and links to a PDF titled "Xserve Transition Guide". In the guide, Apple explains that they will not be developing a future version of the Xserve.
> Quote:
> Apple will not be developing a future version of Xserve. Xserve will be available for order through January 31, 2011. Apple will honor and support all Xserve system warranties and extended support programs. Apple intends to offer the current ship- ping 160GB, 1TB, and 2TB Apple Drive Modules for Xserve through the end of 2011 or while supplies last. Apple will continue to support Xserve customers with service parts for warranty and out-of-warranty service..
> The two alternative server solutions include the Mac Pro with Snow Leopard Server and the Mac mini with Snow Leopard Server. Apple provides transition considerations for customers migrating from the Xserve to these products.
> ...



Apple Discontinues Xserve, Only Available Until January 31st - Mac Rumors


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## ehMax (Feb 17, 2000)

WOW.  

That's a shocker.


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## The Doug (Jun 14, 2003)

And this just in...


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## John Clay (Jun 25, 2006)

ehMax said:


> WOW.
> 
> That's a shocker.


Surprising, but not entirely unexpected. Apple is certainly ditching the Pro market.


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## ldphoto (Jul 9, 2009)

Xserve was more Enterprise than Pro, and Apple never made any significant progress breaking into that market. They're had more success with small businesses, where the Mini server is usually plenty. I doubt they'll sell many Mac Pro servers, but there's no real R&D cost to Apple to have it, so they may as well offer it. I still find it odd that they're including a 5770 video card on a machine that will most likely not even have a monitor attached. A good old GT120 would have been sufficient...


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## broad (Jun 2, 2009)

i just won $5!!!!

next up? mac pro!


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## screature (May 14, 2007)

broad said:


> i just won $5!!!!
> 
> next up? mac pro!


Nah, I think more likely the polycarb Macbook.


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## i-rui (Sep 13, 2006)

John Clay said:


> Surprising, but not entirely unexpected. Apple is certainly ditching the Pro market.


That's my feeling hearing the news. I still think they'll keep the macpro's around for quite a while, but it's (one more) step away from servicing the pro market. Replacing it with a macpro "server" is a bit of a joke. 



ldphoto said:


> Xserve was more Enterprise than Pro, and Apple never made any significant progress breaking into that market.


I think many editing and effects houses used xserves, so i wouldn't say it was just enterprise.


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## macintosh doctor (Mar 23, 2009)

ldphoto said:


> Xserve was more Enterprise than Pro, and Apple never made any significant progress breaking into that market. They're had more success with small businesses, where the Mini server is usually plenty. I doubt they'll sell many Mac Pro servers, but there's no real R&D cost to Apple to have it, so they may as well offer it. I still find it odd that they're including a 5770 video card on a machine that will most likely not even have a monitor attached. A good old GT120 would have been sufficient...


I would say - dumping the xServe says we are more consumer company...
Enterprise & Pro uses xServe.. 
it is not logical to use MacPros in COLO environments
Macmini servers are only good for up to 25 users - in a graphic environment/agency
I really hope they come up with something else.. :|

oh ya - posted on my consumer based - air 11.6


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## Chealion (Jan 16, 2001)

Ugh. I'm not replacing a 1U Xserve with a 12U Mac Pro. I want my LOM back. Here's hoping the news will be better come next spring. Makes doing Xsan, FCS, and their other Pro solutions kind of difficult.

Apple isn't giving up on Pros as so much as what is publicly seen has reduced considerably compared to the other aspects of their business. Then again, perception is usually all that counts.

I wouldn't read this as a precursor to getting rid of Mac OS X Server - they've just said they're selling lots of Mac minis with OS X Server.


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## eMacMan (Nov 27, 2006)

i-rui said:


> That's my feeling hearing the news. I still think they'll keep the macpro's around for quite a while, but it's (one more) step away from servicing the pro market. Replacing it with a macpro "server" is a bit of a joke.
> 
> 
> 
> I think many editing and effects houses used xserves, so i wouldn't say it was just enterprise.


Actually a lot of smaller users, particularly schools, were already using MacPros running OS X Server.


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## 9mmCensor (Jan 27, 2006)

ldphoto said:


> I still find it odd that they're including a 5770 video card on a machine that will most likely not even have a monitor attached. A good old GT120 would have been sufficient...


GPUs are being used more and more to do computational processing other than simple graphics on the screen.

If your rendering using the GPU to do some of the work, its easier to stick a bunch of high end GPUs into a Mac Pro than a 1U xServe


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## jfpoole (Sep 26, 2002)

If I'm surprised about anything I'm surprised it didn't happen sooner. From what I could tell Xserves were never terribly popular; there are only 150 Xserve results in the Geekbench Result Browser (compared with a thousand or so for the latest Mac Pro).


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## broad (Jun 2, 2009)

> Actually a lot of smaller users, particularly schools, were already using MacPros running OS X Server.


thats my setup...


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## i-rui (Sep 13, 2006)

eMacMan said:


> Actually a lot of smaller users, particularly schools, were already using MacPros running OS X Server.


i don't doubt that. but i question that being apples solution to getting rid of the xserve.

any mac can run os x server already. All they're doing now is installing it at the factory,


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## groovetube (Jan 2, 2003)

wonder how long it'll be before mac pros are out, and minis are running iOS...


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## Dennis Nedry (Sep 20, 2007)

[deleted]


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## FeXL (Jan 2, 2004)

The Mac Pro’s no server



> Apple also published a PDF talking up the “new” server solutions, namely a Mac Pro running Mac OS X Server or the company’s Mac mini with Snow Leopard Server product. The latter is a solid server, but the idea that you can replace an Xserve with one is somewhat silly. You don’t buy a Mac mini to do an Xserve’s job. You don’t even buy four. You buy an Xserve because you need a box with power that can properly fit into a server room and that’s designed to be a server. I’m not going to say the Mac mini is not a capable server, but it’s a different class of beast.
> 
> The Mac Pro, while a powerful machine that is certainly able to act as a server, is simply not designed to be a server. For starters, the case design doesn’t work well in a proper server environment. The supported setup for a Mac Pro is vertical. That’s 12U of rack space for a single server. If you want, you can get two Mac Pros in that. In the same 12U of space, I can fit 2 RAIDs and 4 Xserves. Even if you put a Mac Pro on its side, that’s still one Mac Pro in the same space you can put four or five Xserves. What’s more, the Xserves are securely attached to the rack. There’s no built-in way to securely attach a Mac Pro to anything. So you have to rig up some kind of strap system. Before you laugh too much, keep in mind that the tech epicenter of this country is in an active earthquake zone.
> 
> ...


Seems to be a good analysis.


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## broad (Jun 2, 2009)

> On a smaller scale, the current Mac Pro design has no retaining clip for the power cord. So, if there’s a moment of carelessness or you trip behind the rack, you might just traumatically shut down your server.


i stopped reading at this ^. when people say stupid things like this it completely invalidates anything else intelligent they might have had to say


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## 9780 (Sep 14, 2006)

broad said:


> i stopped reading at this ^. when people say stupid things like this it completely invalidates anything else intelligent they might have had to say


I see you've never worked in a datacenter....


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## groovetube (Jan 2, 2003)

heh heh.


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## jfpoole (Sep 26, 2002)

Steve Jobs: Xserve Axed Over Poor Sales - Mac Rumors



> While Apple has not routinely revealed sales figures for the Xserve, the report points to data from research firm Gartner published several years ago showing that Apple was selling on the order of 10,000 units per quarter, a tiny fraction of the company's overall computer sales.


Maybe it's not that Apple doesn't like the pro market, maybe it's the pro market that doesn't like Apple.


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## eMacMan (Nov 27, 2006)

jfpoole said:


> Steve Jobs: Xserve Axed Over Poor Sales - Mac Rumors
> 
> 
> 
> Maybe it's not that Apple doesn't like the pro market, maybe it's the pro market that doesn't like Apple.


Hmmm if I was making racing tires and all season radials I would not expect the racing tires to exceed a tiny fraction of my total sales. The X Serve was by definition a niche product so discontinuing based on poor sales is a sorry excuse.


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## screature (May 14, 2007)

I'm sure the decision is purely economic. If the sales of the Xserve significantly outweighed the cost of the resources necessary to develop and sell the Xserve they would continue doing so, I don't think one needs to look for an ulterior motive beyond the bottom line.


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## i-rui (Sep 13, 2006)

the xserve is (was) overpriced (even by mac pro standards).

the current base model is $900 more than the base mac pro, and has much inferior specs.

it's most definitely that apple doesn't like the pro market.


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## screature (May 14, 2007)

i-rui said:


> the xserve is (was) overpriced (even by mac pro standards).
> 
> the current base model is $900 more than the base mac pro, and has much inferior specs.
> 
> it's most definitely that apple doesn't like the pro market.


As has been pointed out the Xserve represents a certain portion of the Pro market. Apple likes any market they can make good money from, it has nothing to do with pro or otherwise. If the sales of Mac Pro deteriorate to the point where there isn't significant money to had there, then too will the Mac Pro cease to be produced. But to think that they don't "like" the pro market is speaking like they have some sort of prejudice towards it or that the thinking is somehow emotional and not purely a matter of going where the money is, which is IMO just plain silly.


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## screature (May 14, 2007)

jfpoole said:


> Steve Jobs: Xserve Axed Over Poor Sales - Mac Rumors
> 
> 
> 
> Maybe it's not that Apple doesn't like the pro market, maybe it's the pro market that doesn't like Apple.


+1 and much more to the point when it comes to servers.


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## i-rui (Sep 13, 2006)

screature said:


> purely a matter of going where the money is


yes. that's what it is. And i'm disappointed that apple is forgetting that it was the pro market that kept them afloat during the lean years. And the way things are going i can see a time in the future where Apple does axe the pro line up simply because of economics, and IMO it will be a very sad day.


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## screature (May 14, 2007)

i-rui said:


> yes. that's what it is. And i'm disappointed that apple is forgetting that it was the pro market that kept them afloat during the lean years. And the way things are going i can see a time in the future where Apple does axe the pro line up simply because of economics, and IMO it will be a very sad day.


Yes I agree it will be sad for me as well... don't know what I will do then. Have to buy a quad core iMac I guess... sigh... I never wanted to own an iMac.


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## hayesk (Mar 5, 2000)

eMacMan said:


> Hmmm if I was making racing tires and all season radials I would not expect the racing tires to exceed a tiny fraction of my total sales.


And you really don't think Apple took the XServe's niche status into account? You think they just discontinued it on a whim?



> The X Serve was by definition a niche product so discontinuing based on poor sales is a sorry excuse.


A sorry excuse no matter what? If Apple sold 10 XServes in a year, do you expect them to say "well, it's a niche product, so let's keep it going."

At some point you have to evaluate what it costs to keep a product updated compared with how much profit you can make. The XServe just didn't hold up.

And if you seriously need a server with redundant power supply, lights-off management, get one from another vendor, install FreeBSD on it, and learn some UNIX.

If you don't seriously need those features, get a Mac Pro with MacOS X Server. Geez, I've seen buying XServes for their homes, or placing it on a table in the corner of their office. Can those people really not get buy with a Mac mini server or a Mac Pro server?

I'm not saying that nobody was hurt by this decision, but I'd bet that Apple discovered those who really needed the XServe form factor were simply not enough to make the product viable.


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## Trevor... (Feb 21, 2003)

While I personally really didn't care for the Xserve, or 1U servers in general - I am alarmed by what the move represents.

I was at the MacTech conference when this was announced, it went over poorly...


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## screature (May 14, 2007)

Trevor... said:


> While I personally really didn't care for the Xserve, or 1U servers in general - I am alarmed by what the move represents.
> 
> I was at the MacTech conference when this was announced,* it went over poorly...*


That is of no surprise as many of the incomes the people who were there would have been affected by the announcement.


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## steviewhy (Oct 21, 2010)

sudo rm -rf /


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