[geekstud]

Mac OS Server will have a tough time breaking into the ranks of corporate big business IT groups; there is too much competition from more established players such as Sun/Solaris and perhaps even from Linux. There is, however, significant opportunity in the home and small business market for Apple to provide server solutions both for Mac-only as well as heterogeneous client deployments. If Apple can offer a powerful, simple to use, and well priced solution, they could increase their marketshare in the workgroup server area. Imagine if Mac servers and clients "just worked" together right out of the box, and Mac OS Servers had simple setup choices for consumers much like some of the network attached storage solutions that have been introduced over the past few years.

Mac OS X 10.1 looks like it could cover well the technical requirements of such a workgroup server solution (although currently lacking the consumer-level simple setup); sadly, Apple hasn't listened well to the market regarding product pricing. The Server OS product, especially the 10-client license, is priced perhaps 200% over where it should be to attract home and small business users. Pricing the "consumer" version at $250 would make it attractive to that market, both sold separately and packaged with hardware. A G4 system configured to suit a low level SOHO server (733MHz, 256 MB RAM, 2x60 GB EIDE disks, CD-RW) is $2,149 without a display or the sever OS; a more aggressive approach would be to sell such a system with the 10-client license for $2,000 and a cheap 3rd party CRT display option.

[Axiom]

Apple has a history with pricing. It's one of the differences between them and Microsoft.

Microsoft initially prices software in order to move it out, sometimes even for free. They take a loss (presumably) in development/production costs in order to acquire market share. Their competition can't keep up, because Microsoft has a powerful budget to back up calculated losses in a few key markets. It's cutthroat, but it works. Case in point: Internet Exploiter.

Apple, on the other hand, appears to be actually trying to make money on its products. It's a tried-and-true strategy, but is no match for the "get it out there and then we'll charge for it" tactic, especially with competition willing to do anything to steal marketshare from a superior product. Notice that the widest adoption of Apple technologies have come when they did not charge exorbitantly: QuickTime, for example. I commend the semi-recent shift which has yielded such hits as iMovie and iTunes.

With OS X Server 10, Apple has two factors working against the adoption of its software:
1) Overpricing
2) Half-baked software

Although OS X Server 10 has a lot of good features, some of them are still not ready for prime time. And getting them to work is like a wrestling match. We shall see what improvements 10.1 brings, but OSXS 10.04 is, IMHO, a downgrade from v1.2.

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I Blame Microsoft.