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N E W S / A N A L Y S I S
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An Apple of Your Eye?
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June 10, 2002
By Michael J. DeMaria
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Enterprise IT professionals generally don't show much interest in Apple Computer. Frankly, they pass it up faster than a musical-theater version of Planet of the Apes. But with its new 1U server hardware, Xserve, along with OS X and enhanced support contracts, Apple should be taken seriously.
Xserve is the first dedicated server that supports OS X -- and it's about time: OS X Server has been out for a few years now. With features such as hot-swappable drives, health monitoring, rack-mount rails and a DB-9 console port, Mac hardware has grown up.
The older Mac OS, which lacked good multiprocessing and protective memory, could hardly be considered server material. But Mac OS X Server is a Unix-derived system with all the bells and whistles. It can run Apache, Bind, Sendmail, and all sorts of Unix and open-source software. Hewlett-Packard will even support OS X Server within HP OpenView.
Most noteworthy, however, is Apple's new on-site and on-call (within four hours, 24 hours a day) repair services. And if you don't want to bring in an Apple expert to repair your server, you can opt for Apple's Service Parts Kit, swapping out drives, logic boards, power supplies and the like as needed.
While this is a first for Apple, it's de rigueur elsewhere. Compaq, Dell, HP and IBM have been offering server hardware, enterprise software and fast support for years. But the Apple offering may have more impact in price: The Xserve -- at $2,999 for 60 GB of disk space and 1 GHz of processing power -- is rather cheap, potentially lowering server prices across the board. Apple is also bundling an unlimited client-access license with Xserve, something you won't find cheaply with Windows. It's clear Apple shelled out some good R&D money on Xserve. But is it enough to persuade companies to buy Macs instead of Linux on Intel?
Our advice? If yours is a Mac department, you'll want to snap this up quickly. An unlimited-access license for OS X Server costs $1,000, so enterprises thinking of implementing OS X Server could save some money buying Xserve. But we want to see if Xserve performs before endorsing it as a hardware product.
--Michael J. DeMaria, mdemaria@nwc.com
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