[willed]

Well? Is Apple taking a hit on everyone it sells? Articles always compare it very favourably with servers from traditionally cheaper manufacturers such as Dell.

http://www.computerworld.com/hardwar...0004p4,00.html

[Apple Pro Underwear]

demand is low. didn't you go to college?

[ManOfSteal]

I'm holding out for the Xserve mini personally...

.025U

[tooki]

Originally posted by willed:
Well? Is Apple taking a hit on everyone it sells? Articles always compare it very favourably with servers from traditionally cheaper manufacturers such as Dell.

http://www.computerworld.com/hardwar...0004p4,00.html

In order:
1. ATA storage instead of SCSI.
2. No license fees to Microsoft.
3. No hideously expensive Xeon CPUs
4. Shared technology with Power Macs


tooki

[Kenneth]

Originally posted by tooki:
In order:
1. ATA storage instead of SCSI.
2. No license fees to Microsoft.
3. No hideously expensive Xeon CPUs
4. Shared technology with Power Macs


tooki

I'm about to say that.. except for #4.

[Oneota]

I love this quote from that article:

Dan Fischler, president of the Scotts Valley, Calif.-based IT consultancy, estimates that one tech support person can manage 50 to 75 Macs, whereas ideally, there should be one for every 20 to 25 Windows PCs.

50 to 75?? Try 1100! There's two of us at my job, and we do IT for the whole friggin' district! If they think one technician can only handle 50-75 Macs, they've obviously not heard of NetRestore!

[OldManMac]

I doubt seriously that Apple is taking a hit on every one it sells. Apple is a profit-making business. Besides, it's not hard to figure out why it's cheaper.

Technology and components are shared with many other Macs, and there's no software on them, other than the OS, among other reasons.

[olePigeon]

Unlimited License Windows Server 2003 for a dual processor system is $4000. Just incase they were trying to get skimpy on that Dell with only the 25-user license.

[willed]

Originally posted by Apple Pro Underwear:
demand is low. didn't you go to college?

Since when has Apple having low demand for its computers made it lower prices!?

[Richard Edgar]

I doubt they're making a loss, but they might be accepting lower margins. Remember it's years since Apple was in this sort of game, so they're very much the newcomer. Also, check the service contracts: that's where the expenses are.

[TheMosco]

I work for a company of less than 75 employees(more than 50 but I am not sure the exact numbers). We develop a windows only product, which can't be made for the mac due to technical reasons beyond our control. Interestingly enough, our email is run off an Xserve and they are testing xRaids right now to use as large terabyte++ caches for our clients to replace the current x86 servers that we have been using. The Apple hardware is inexpensive and seems easy to manage. Our IT guys seem willing to accept apple based on these 2 things. I am not sure that could have been said a couple years ago.

[Apple Pro Underwear]

Originally posted by willed:
Since when has Apple having low demand for its computers made it lower prices!?

every year

when a new powermac is introduced, the old one is reduced in price.

the demand for it is lower now that the new one is out. with the new price, the demand is higher.

otherwise, a new powermac would not replace the old one, it would cost more, i.e.

new bling G5 - 3500
old bling G5 - 3000
old old g5 - 2000
worse - 1500

[willed]

Originally posted by Apple Pro Underwear:
every year

when a new powermac is introduced, the old one is reduced in price.

the demand for it is lower now that the new one is out. with the new price, the demand is higher.

otherwise, a new powermac would not replace the old one, it would cost more, i.e.

new bling G5 - 3500
old bling G5 - 3000
old old g5 - 2000
worse - 1500

[ Can't be bothered to explain the difference between this example and that of brand new Xserves. I think other posts have confirmed that the primary differentiator in cost is in the software license ]

[Apple Pro Underwear]

Originally posted by willed:


[ Can't be bothered to explain the difference between this example and that of brand new Xserves. I think other posts have confirmed that the primary differentiator in cost is in the software license ]

follow the thread, i'm not even talking about x-serves

apple does succumb to the laws of supply and demand in it's other products

[Skip Breakfast]

How come the Xserve is so cheap?

"Why is the Xserve so inexpensive?" would be better.

[andreas_g4]

Originally posted by Apple Pro Underwear:
[B]every year

when a new powermac is introduced, the old one is reduced in price.

the demand for it is lower now that the new one is out. with the new price, the demand is higher.

By lowering prices you can raise demand for a product. But that isn't necessarily true the other way around. If you have a product on the market on which demand is low, you are not be able to cut prices without loosing margins. If your goal is not marketshare, you keep the product at the current price level to sustain profit. If there's one company that doesen't cut prices to gain marketshare, that's Apple. They do a lot better on this side of the turn of the millennium, but, for example, the iPod kept it's price for quite some time, although others were wildering in the market with lower prices and Apple would have got an even greater slice of the cake if they'd lowered the price earlier and more noticable.

[tooki]

Cutting prices to increase market share is precisely what Apple has been doing for the past 7 years, starting with the original iMac. Now, it's Apple, so they aren't willing to do it as drastically as the PC vendors, but they have been doing it. Whether it's been successful is a totally different question.

tooki

[olePigeon]

Originally posted by TheMosco:
I work for a company of less than 75 employees(more than 50 but I am not sure the exact numbers). We develop a windows only product, which can't be made for the mac due to technical reasons beyond our control.

AKA Microsoft is giving you DirectX, ActiveX, and DirectPlay IDEs for free and you don't want to take the time to adhere to cross platform standards.

[olePigeon]

Originally posted by tooki:
Cutting prices to increase market share is precisely what Apple has been doing for the past 7 years, starting with the original iMac. Now, it's Apple, so they aren't willing to do it as drastically as the PC vendors, but they have been doing it. Whether it's been successful is a totally different question.

tooki

No one noticed that the PowerBooks dropped $200 in price? iPods are cheaper too.

I also remember when the PowerMac 9600 cost nearly $10,000.

[TheMosco]

Originally posted by olePigeon:
AKA Microsoft is giving you DirectX, ActiveX, and DirectPlay IDEs for free and you don't want to take the time to adhere to cross platform standards.

Show me bulletproof crossplatform DRM that works on a variety of MP3 players and can be applied to music and movies...

Fairplay is the only crossplatform DRM as far as I know, and apple wont license it. It would be nice to develop something like cross platform DRM, but when you are such a small player trying to get your product out and updated within very tight time cycles, its impossible to do and stay in business.

[andreas_g4]

Originally posted by tooki:
Cutting prices to increase market share is precisely what Apple has been doing for the past 7 years, starting with the original iMac. Now, it's Apple, so they aren't willing to do it as drastically as the PC vendors, but they have been doing it. Whether it's been successful is a totally different question.

tooki

I'd rather say that Apple didn't cut prices, but lowering them with new revisions of their products. I guess I was unclear on that one, because lowering prices during the lifecycle of a revision is something Apple quite rarely does (current iBooks, iPod (very slightly)) and that's what I meant.

[olePigeon]

Originally posted by TheMosco:
Show me bulletproof crossplatform DRM that works on a variety of MP3 players and can be applied to music and movies...

Bulletproof DRM doesn't exist on any platform. There's bulletproof encryption now, though.

[TheMosco]

Originally posted by olePigeon:
Bulletproof DRM doesn't exist on any platform. There's bulletproof encryption now, though.

You right, poor choice of wording on my part. But you know what I meant...

[Deimos]

Originally posted by tooki:
In order:
1. ATA storage instead of SCSI.
2. No license fees to Microsoft.
3. No hideously expensive Xeon CPUs
4. Shared technology with Power Macs


tooki

Xeon's aren't expensive.

[DeathMan]

Originally posted by Deimos:
Xeon's aren't expensive.

Hurm.

http://www.newegg.com/app/ViewProduc...27R&depa=0

[Deimos]

Originally posted by DeathMan:
Hurm.

http://www.newegg.com/app/ViewProduc...27R&depa=0

That site is a mess to read, lol. Are we talking about buying an individual Xeon cpu? If so, then I consider them cheap. If we're talking about complete rack-mounted servers, I can buy a nice dual 2.8 Xeon system with all the usual goodies that an xserve has, for a grand less.

Edit: PC manufacturers don't pay retail prices for processors. So the price of an individual Xeon to them, would be considerably less than what we would pay.

[mitchell_pgh]

Originally posted by Deimos:
That site is a mess to read. Are we talking about buying an individual Xeon cpu? If so, then I consider them cheap. If we're talking about complete rack-mounted servers, I can buy a nice dual 2.8 Xeon system with all the usual goodies that an xserve has, for a grand less.

Please feel free to show a reputable and comparable server that is a grand less then xserve.

I'm not talking about some off brand, I'm talking a Dell/IBM/HP etc.

[zwiebel_]

Originally posted by mitchell_pgh:
Please feel free to show a reputable and comparable server that is a grand less then xserve.

I'm not talking about some off brand, I'm talking a Dell/IBM/HP etc.

ditto

[Deimos]

Originally posted by mitchell_pgh:
Please feel free to show a reputable and comparable server that is a grand less then xserve.

I'm not talking about some off brand, I'm talking a Dell/IBM/HP etc.

Sure. In fact the basic system I saw there earlier today, is only $1497 from Dell. That's more than $1500 less than a single cpu Xserve.

Apple Xserve: 1 cpu. $2,999.00


2.0GHz PowerPC G5
512K L2 cache
1GHz system bus
1GB DDR400 ECC SDRAM
80GB Serial ATA drive
Mac OS X Server (Unlimited Client)
Dual Gigabit Ethernet
No video card
Combo drive


Dell: dual Xeon 2.8

Similar spec to the Xserve.

http://configure.us.dell.com/dellsto...1425&s=bsd

[Y3a]

Incuding the unlimited server license?

(and the requirement of a highly paid MCSE to handle the bugs in the MS OS, viruses and security issues? )

The real point is that one a business TRIES an XServe, they will get more, and dump the PC crap. Microsoft is mostly to blame for the cost of IT employees (MCSE's etc) and they sure don't know computers, they just know Windows, which makes them usless in most all cross-platform shops. The MCSE in our shop never DID understand that a domain wasn't needed for the file sharing on the OS X.3 server. Any time the ISP went down, he rebooted the FILE SERVER thinking it had something to do with users connectivity.

[Deimos]

Originally posted by Y3a:
Incuding the unlimited server license?

Well, I'm not really arguing about what's better, or what it comes with. Just that a Xeon server is not exuberantly expensive like one of the posters said above.

[mitchell_pgh]

Originally posted by Deimos:
Well, I'm not really arguing about what's better, or what it comes with. Just that a Xeon server is not exuberantly expensive like one of the posters said above.

Yah, I was going after the whole package, but I agree that the Xeon isn't horrifically expensive.

[Deimos]

Originally posted by mitchell_pgh:
Yah, I was going after the whole package, but I agree that the Xeon isn't horrifically expensive.

It's not a bad deal, though. You get Red Hat Linux, and if you select more support options, and extras, it comes out around $2000.

Personally, though, I'd buy an Xserve. I like the solutions that Apple has going on just now.

[zwiebel_]

Originally posted by Deimos:
Well, I'm not really arguing about what's better, or what it comes with. Just that a Xeon server is not exuberantly expensive like one of the posters said above.

Aside that you cannot buy an unlimited server license with the model you configured (have to opt for a higher end model), also missing are capabilities for hot-plug drives, hardware raid, and server administration tools. Mounting brackets = additional cost.

PS I am merely pointing out the missing components.

[olePigeon]

The Dell doesn't have hardware RAID or hot-swap drives.

It's also missing Windows 2003 Unlimited for 2-processor system which is another $4000.

[Athens]

Originally posted by willed:
Well? Is Apple taking a hit on everyone it sells? Articles always compare it very favourably with servers from traditionally cheaper manufacturers such as Dell.

http://www.computerworld.com/hardwar...0004p4,00.html

For one the OS is apples, that Dell has a 25 user licence of Windows Server which alone is worth 4000+. And its using Xeons which are expensive CPUs and its using SCSI Hard Drives which add cost.

[Deimos]

Originally posted by olePigeon:
The Dell doesn't have hardware RAID or hot-swap drives.

It's also missing Windows 2003 Unlimited for 2-processor system which is another $4000.

Add RAID and it's still a good deal, certainly nothing way more expensive than Xserves. Also, you can choose Linux, which I'd do anyway.

Point being, you can configure it to your heart's content, and a Xeon-based server is not expensive.