Welcome to the MacNN Forums.

If this is your first visit, be sure to check out the FAQ by clicking the link above. You may have to register before you can post: click the register link above to proceed. To start viewing messages, select the forum that you want to visit from the selection below.

You are here: MacNN Forums > Hardware - Troubleshooting and Discussion > Mac Desktops > The "XStation" Rumor and a new Product Matrix.

The "XStation" Rumor and a new Product Matrix.
Thread Tools
tgrundke
Dedicated MacNNer
Join Date: Sep 2000
Location: Castell�n, Spain and Cleveland, OH
Status: Offline
Reply With Quote
Jun 1, 2003, 02:08 PM
 
As anticipation is building for the pending speculated 970 release (I'm sounding like MOSR at the moment...ugh), I thought it would be interesting to read peoples' thoughts on the potential for an entirely different product to enter the 'matrix': the XStation.

Since Apple appears to be wooing the high-end market for workstations, specifially with an eye on the Hollywood effects market, what do people think of the potential that Apple will reserve the 970 initially for a new, very high-end (and very high margin) product to take advantage of this beast.

Granted, we all want the PowerMac to get the much needed speed boost that it needs, but what if Apple were planning the 970 instead for an entirely different product? Could it be that Apple's matrix is about to be complete pitched in lieu of a new product scheme?

We're already seeing some overlap in markets with the new 12" PowerBook, and even Apple has admitted that there has been cannibalization of iBook sales as they've gone to the PowerBook. And we know that people outside of Cupterino have scratched their heads a bit at the overlap, and no doubt folks inside Cupertino are thinking the same.

So, does it seem like mid-2003 will be the year that Apple completely forgoes their own product matrix and begins to employ an entirely different product matrix/scale/division?

Good brainstorming session.
Travis L. Grundke
Sapere Aude
     
Axo1ot1
Professional Poster
Join Date: Apr 2002
Location: New York City
Status: Offline
Reply With Quote
Jun 1, 2003, 03:00 PM
 
THat's the stupidest thing I ever heard. Apple needs a strong pro Mac lineup. Not a strong super-pro Mac lineup and a patheticly wimpy pro Mac lineup. If they were to do what you're talking about they would probably use POWER4s or something. The idea that they would hold back their entire lineup so that they could corner an incredibly niche market is lunacy.
     
Anand
Mac Enthusiast
Join Date: Oct 2000
Location: Between heaven and hell
Status: Offline
Reply With Quote
Jun 1, 2003, 03:06 PM
 
Apple does stupid things. I am betting that the 970 is going to be found first in a high end workstation class tower that costs ~$3699. The G4 tower will continue with Moto moving everything to a 200 FSB. Apple's profits will rise because people will eat these things up but market share will decrease because Apple will sell <50,000 G4 towers.
Yes, I know I could buy a PC, but why?
     
joe_kr
Junior Member
Join Date: Jun 2002
Status: Offline
Reply With Quote
Jun 1, 2003, 03:43 PM
 
     
chrisutley
Grizzled Veteran
Join Date: Mar 2003
Status: Offline
Reply With Quote
Jun 1, 2003, 04:22 PM
 
I think there's plenty of evidence that Apple is going to have some hella-fast workstations in the near future, but I don't think now is the time. I don't think the first run of 970's are fast enough to tell you the truth, and Apple is hurting because of stalled desktop sales.

High-end workstations are coming, not yet.
MacBook and iMac Core 2 Duo 24"
     
terrancew_hod
Forum Regular
Join Date: May 2003
Location: Ft Lauderdale, FL
Status: Offline
Reply With Quote
Jun 1, 2003, 04:42 PM
 
I'm betting that the new 970s will be using in he mid-range and higher powermacs and be thrown in the 15" powerbook.

The lower end power mac may still be G4-based. But eventuall the G4s will be thrown in the iBooks as well.

Apple need to create some excitement for their personal computing line. The PowerMac line is suffer from the stigma of slower processors. They're not going to help the situation by throwing out machines that don't address this. That is where the should focus their efforts first.
     
OreoCookie
Moderator
Join Date: May 2001
Location: Hilbert space
Status: Offline
Reply With Quote
Jun 1, 2003, 05:04 PM
 
They may keep an XStation for later. My guess is that Apple will bring some serious hardware to market sooner or later (big iron server, big iron workstation).

I am not sure you guys here have an idea about a workstation. A workstation CPU costs more than the top of the notch power Mac (at the department I work at, we have AlphaStations -- a 667 MHz EV67 CPU costs about 5,000 ?, same goes for mobo and 2 gigs of memory; from the front it looks like a regular pc (if you ignore the noise from its fans), but it is about twice as deep).

If Apple wants to, it could market a workstation that's a class of its own. But I think this will be after the wide-spread adoption of the PPC970. Maybe they'll do it when they intro PPC980 systems and give the Xiron models the Power5 instead. That would costs a lot more than a regular PPC980 cpu, but it would be faster in some applications. People who buy such a thing have a need for speed and their (usually specific) application benefits from the Xiron architecture.

If Apple does it the right way, PowerMacs and Xirons would not intersect at all.
I don't suffer from insanity, I enjoy every minute of it.
     
Leonard
Professional Poster
Join Date: Mar 2000
Location: Ottawa, Ontario, Canada
Status: Offline
Reply With Quote
Jun 2, 2003, 04:10 PM
 
If Apple were to introduce a workstation computer, it probably would be a quad-processor or octa-processor based machine using PowerPC 970s, and Apple would keep the PowerMacs single and dual processor machines. After all, all the high-end software is usually SMP aware. I've heard rumors of 64-processor machines, but that sounds unrealistic.
Mac Pro Dual 3.0 Dual-Core
MacBook Pro
     
OreoCookie
Moderator
Join Date: May 2001
Location: Hilbert space
Status: Offline
Reply With Quote
Jun 2, 2003, 05:37 PM
 
Originally posted by Leonard:
If Apple were to introduce a workstation computer, it probably would be a quad-processor or octa-processor based machine using PowerPC 970s, and Apple would keep the PowerMacs single and dual processor machines. After all, all the high-end software is usually SMP aware. I've heard rumors of 64-processor machines, but that sounds unrealistic.
Yeah, but that's not all. If Apple is to intro a workstation, that would probably be well after the introduction of the PPC970 to the general public.
I don't suffer from insanity, I enjoy every minute of it.
     
Xaaron Swiftblade
Junior Member
Join Date: May 2002
Location: Temple University
Status: Offline
Reply With Quote
Jun 2, 2003, 06:07 PM
 
Considering the rumor of a super low end g4 w/o monitor for $599, I'm wondering how much it actually costs apple to build there machines. If this price is remotely higher than that of building a current single processor powermac, we could see these plumet in price, the iMacs possibly acquiring a low end 970, the dual g4s coming down in price as well, and a new dual 970 at the old high end price ($3k ish). I'd love to see the 970s cheap (such as a 970 iMac *drool*) but I think thats the most unrealistic. Regardless, it's only a month til everyone is either hugely dissapointed or starts convulsing on their respective floors in excitement.
     
greenG4
Grizzled Veteran
Join Date: Aug 2002
Location: Cardboard Box
Status: Offline
Reply With Quote
Jun 2, 2003, 08:55 PM
 
Originally posted by tgrundke:
So, does it seem like mid-2003 will be the year that Apple completely forgoes their own product matrix and begins to employ an entirely different product matrix/scale/division?
As I recall, they did that with the cube...
<Witty comment here>
www.healthwebit.com
     
Leonard
Professional Poster
Join Date: Mar 2000
Location: Ottawa, Ontario, Canada
Status: Offline
Reply With Quote
Jun 3, 2003, 04:43 PM
 
Originally posted by tgrundke:

So, does it seem like mid-2003 will be the year that Apple completely forgoes their own product matrix and begins to employ an entirely different product matrix/scale/division?
It depends on what you mean by the product matrix. They used to have a long time ago a matrix of 4 products - consumer desktop, consumer laptop, pro desktop, pro laptop. They abandoned that matrix a long time ago when they introduced the eMac, ipod and the xserve. Just look at today's Online Apple Store - no product matrix there, anymore.
Mac Pro Dual 3.0 Dual-Core
MacBook Pro
     
DrBoar
Senior User
Join Date: Apr 2002
Location: Stockholm Sweden
Status: Offline
Reply With Quote
Jun 4, 2003, 07:26 AM
 
The first priority must be to get the towers back in the race after a 4 year absence. A work station maight come in later but starting with a server or workstation for the 970 would be very stupid. Not as bad as introduce a new IBM 970 powered Pippin but not far off.
     
schalliol
Mac Elite
Join Date: Oct 1999
Location: Carmel, IN, USA
Status: Offline
Reply With Quote
Jun 5, 2003, 08:04 PM
 
We need at least one machine that can kill whatever Intel & AMD can throw at it. I mean kill it.
iMac Late '15 5K 27" 4.0 Quad i7 24/512GB SSD OWC ThunderDock 2 Blu-Ray ±RW MBP '14 Retina 15" 2.6 16/1TB iPhone 7+ 128 Jet Black iPad Pro 128 + Cellular

FOR SALE: MP '06 Yosemite 8x3.0 24/240GB SSD RAID 0, 240GB SSD, 1.5TB HDD RAID 0, 1TB HDD, Blu-Ray±RW, Radeon HD 5770
     
Scotttheking
Moderator Emeritus
Join Date: Dec 2000
Location: College Park, MD
Status: Offline
Reply With Quote
Jun 5, 2003, 08:39 PM
 
Originally posted by schalliol:
We need at least one machine that can kill whatever Intel & AMD can throw at it. I mean kill it.
64way 64bit system? GIMME, GIMME.
My website
Help me pay for college. Click for more info.
     
OreoCookie
Moderator
Join Date: May 2001
Location: Hilbert space
Status: Offline
Reply With Quote
Jun 6, 2003, 09:35 AM
 
Originally posted by schalliol:
We need at least one machine that can kill whatever Intel & AMD can throw at it. I mean kill it.
The definite kill will happen when the PPC980 comes out (presumably next year with the Power5). The PPC970 will get even at half the power consumption ...
I don't suffer from insanity, I enjoy every minute of it.
     
schalliol
Mac Elite
Join Date: Oct 1999
Location: Carmel, IN, USA
Status: Offline
Reply With Quote
Jun 6, 2003, 02:27 PM
 
You think the 980 will come out so soon? I guess maybe it's just an incrimental version, but man, we're just excited for the next "G"
iMac Late '15 5K 27" 4.0 Quad i7 24/512GB SSD OWC ThunderDock 2 Blu-Ray ±RW MBP '14 Retina 15" 2.6 16/1TB iPhone 7+ 128 Jet Black iPad Pro 128 + Cellular

FOR SALE: MP '06 Yosemite 8x3.0 24/240GB SSD RAID 0, 240GB SSD, 1.5TB HDD RAID 0, 1TB HDD, Blu-Ray±RW, Radeon HD 5770
     
OreoCookie
Moderator
Join Date: May 2001
Location: Hilbert space
Status: Offline
Reply With Quote
Jun 6, 2003, 06:04 PM
 
Originally posted by schalliol:
You think the 980 will come out so soon? I guess maybe it's just an incrimental version, but man, we're just excited for the next "G"
Nope, it's the next G (as in Generation), because it is a Power5 derivative which is the successor to the Power4 (and the PPC970 is a Power4 derivative).

I do not know when the PPC980 will debut, but the Power5 is expected to be available next year (2004). So my guess is that the development will be much more streamlined -- after all, the PPC970's basic architecture is that of a Power4. They've trimmed the fat a little (fabric controller, L3 controller, etc.).

So definitely yes, the PPC980 is a next generation.
I don't suffer from insanity, I enjoy every minute of it.
     
Dogma
Mac Elite
Join Date: Jan 2001
Location: Cumbria, England
Status: Offline
Reply With Quote
Jun 10, 2003, 03:32 PM
 
I always had the "why not" question about Apple. As in "Why not bring some obscenely fast machine that will literally murder in any test any machine due out in the next ten years?"

You know, like a twelve unit rack mount machine with 128 970's in it. Sure, it would cost more than a Gulfstream, but why not?

1) Someone would buy it, just to have it.
2) they could say "Apple - maker of the fastest computer ever made"
3) Think of the markup they could have on it.
4) the resell value would be hilariously low, you could see some dude with a pickup at a car boot sale trying to flog it...

But why not?

If I had a billion quid, I'm sure I would find a couple of million in the bank and would buy one...
Hark, I hear a robin sig'ing in the trees!
Nae, there is no sog to be sug,
or am I wrog? Why can't I sig?
     
schalliol
Mac Elite
Join Date: Oct 1999
Location: Carmel, IN, USA
Status: Offline
Reply With Quote
Jun 10, 2003, 03:40 PM
 
Look up PowerBox, it had like 12 PCI cards with 4 G3s on them or something like that.
iMac Late '15 5K 27" 4.0 Quad i7 24/512GB SSD OWC ThunderDock 2 Blu-Ray ±RW MBP '14 Retina 15" 2.6 16/1TB iPhone 7+ 128 Jet Black iPad Pro 128 + Cellular

FOR SALE: MP '06 Yosemite 8x3.0 24/240GB SSD RAID 0, 240GB SSD, 1.5TB HDD RAID 0, 1TB HDD, Blu-Ray±RW, Radeon HD 5770
     
Cipher13
Registered User
Join Date: Apr 2000
Status: Offline
Reply With Quote
Jun 10, 2003, 06:00 PM
 
I see a dummy terminal as being more likely than a big iron, though either is possible.

Think about it... Xserve array with a bunch of Apple terminals. Gigabit ethernet is in place, 802.11g is in place... everything could be drawn server-side and then sent to the terminal via 802.11g in a Remote Desktop-esque manner. This makes AirPort connectivity possible (it'd be too slow any other way)

All it'd need is a G3 and a Radeon, depending on how it was done (drawing server-side or client-side, etc).

I think this is the answer to the TabletPC that Apple has been looking for.

The education market would go nuts over this.
     
schalliol
Mac Elite
Join Date: Oct 1999
Location: Carmel, IN, USA
Status: Offline
Reply With Quote
Jun 10, 2003, 06:03 PM
 
Yeah, more likely would be that there was a new processor than some beast, as people have even less demand for high power than they did (en mass).
iMac Late '15 5K 27" 4.0 Quad i7 24/512GB SSD OWC ThunderDock 2 Blu-Ray ±RW MBP '14 Retina 15" 2.6 16/1TB iPhone 7+ 128 Jet Black iPad Pro 128 + Cellular

FOR SALE: MP '06 Yosemite 8x3.0 24/240GB SSD RAID 0, 240GB SSD, 1.5TB HDD RAID 0, 1TB HDD, Blu-Ray±RW, Radeon HD 5770
     
Simon
Posting Junkie
Join Date: Nov 2000
Location: in front of my Mac
Status: Offline
Reply With Quote
Jun 11, 2003, 04:03 AM
 
Originally posted by Cipher13:
I see a dummy terminal as being more likely than a big iron, though either is possible.

Think about it... Xserve array with a bunch of Apple terminals. Gigabit ethernet is in place, 802.11g is in place... everything could be drawn server-side and then sent to the terminal via 802.11g in a Remote Desktop-esque manner. This makes AirPort connectivity possible (it'd be too slow any other way)

All it'd need is a G3 and a Radeon, depending on how it was done (drawing server-side or client-side, etc).

I think this is the answer to the TabletPC that Apple has been looking for.

The education market would go nuts over this.
Cipher, a couple of months ago I started a thread here to discuss the feasibility/probability of Apple doing exactly this. I'm too lazy to find the thread (and thanks to the admins we can't access the subscribed thread list ), so I'll just sum up what people mentioned there:

Basically it boiled down to: server-side GUI or client-side GUI. And also, that Aqua is a very resource-hungry GUI which would make it much more difficult than just X11-forwarding.

- I was told that if we do server-side GUI we would need an insane Xserve and an incredible bandwidth for the network. At least 100Mbps Ethernet. So forget Airport (even APX!).

- And if we did client-side GUI we would need graphic cards in the thin clients, making them a) not that thin and b) rather expensive. Additionally people warned that this approach would require a complete rewrite of the Window Manager and that it would be much more work than it was to port X11 and Xfree86 to OS X.

I really really liked the idea and I know that our lab and our university would go completely nuts about it (let alone the IT guys responsible for all the administrative computers just running Mozilla and Word), but people here on the board gave me the impression that they didn't think it was feasible nor that it was likely to happen...

If that's right, well... too bad.

     
Cipher13
Registered User
Join Date: Apr 2000
Status: Offline
Reply With Quote
Jun 11, 2003, 05:22 AM
 
They wouldn't be that expensive

Cheap QE compatible graphics card, small HD for local apps, voila. A couple of hundred dollars, max.

The software thing is the bitch, but it COULD be done.
     
Dogma
Mac Elite
Join Date: Jan 2001
Location: Cumbria, England
Status: Offline
Reply With Quote
Jun 11, 2003, 11:01 AM
 
On the Thin Client thing - That would be cool.

the Grahics card wouldn't be too much hassle - think about the laptops - and think about the other tablet PCs that don't aren't even thin clients - just keyboardless laptops.

As for the drive issue, would you really need a drive - especially one the size of say the ipod or whatever? Why not go with solidstate for the prefs and Aqua rendering software, then run whatever applications from the serverside? Okay, you're not gonna be running Photoshop or anything over Airport, but if it's non graphics intensive and you're only working with interactive files, why not?

I could see this working if it was cheap enough for classrooms where projectors are usually needed, and there is problems getting eveyone positioned to see it. Also for tests and the like, full control of the system from the server, and no opportunity for hacking away like on a fully featured client with the Apps on the client side...

just mine
Hark, I hear a robin sig'ing in the trees!
Nae, there is no sog to be sug,
or am I wrog? Why can't I sig?
     
awcopus
Mac Elite
Join Date: Nov 2001
Location: New York City
Status: Offline
Reply With Quote
Jun 11, 2003, 02:05 PM
 
Dogma, must agree with you. Have had similar thoughts. Apple should come out with some futuristic machine, metaphorically a concept car for the computer world, that just blows everything out of the water. Something droolworthy.
     
schalliol
Mac Elite
Join Date: Oct 1999
Location: Carmel, IN, USA
Status: Offline
Reply With Quote
Jun 11, 2003, 03:59 PM
 
Something as radical of a departure as a Newton, but that worked 100% the way it should...i.e. come out with the Newton 2100.

I'm not saying PDAs, but rather something that that kind of departure.
iMac Late '15 5K 27" 4.0 Quad i7 24/512GB SSD OWC ThunderDock 2 Blu-Ray ±RW MBP '14 Retina 15" 2.6 16/1TB iPhone 7+ 128 Jet Black iPad Pro 128 + Cellular

FOR SALE: MP '06 Yosemite 8x3.0 24/240GB SSD RAID 0, 240GB SSD, 1.5TB HDD RAID 0, 1TB HDD, Blu-Ray±RW, Radeon HD 5770
     
DeathMan
Mac Elite
Join Date: Aug 2001
Location: Capitol City
Status: Offline
Reply With Quote
Jun 12, 2003, 11:06 PM
 
This is a comment to the original poster:

You don't canniblize the ibook line with the powerbook line. Its a GOOD thing when people choose to buy the more expensive product over the cheaper product. Of course this is if the more expensive product yeilds a higher profit. If they made less money on the 12" powerbook, whats the point really.


I love the dumb terminal idea. Ever read Ender's Game? thats a great way to run computers, especially in a controled network environment like a school, or military.
( Last edited by DeathMan; Jun 12, 2003 at 11:18 PM. )
     
Superchicken
Addicted to MacNN
Join Date: Mar 2002
Location: Winnipeg
Status: Offline
Reply With Quote
Jun 13, 2003, 04:08 AM
 
there are those new 1.5 inch drives selling for sub 100 bucks, add in a cheap low speed G3 and cheap QE capable graphics card, and you'd be around the 300 dollar mark for the portables. I THINK not sure.

Anyway, it's a good idea, dout the Xstation, though it might happen.

I think what would actually be cool is if Apple did something with like kinda a cross between a PDA and a Mac. Bigger than a PDA by a fair bit but smaller than a tablet. think about Discmans they're BIG, they're the size of a CD, but they work, if apple made something with mostly screen on top, thinner and longer than a Discman that someone could throw in a backpack or suit case or something with say a 600Mhz G3, that wouldn't even be active when in the reach of your home mac which would it could use to do the real hard work. IE you COULD edit a photo on it in a mobile version of Photoshop, but only if you need to, where as at home when in reach of your main mac, it can off load all the processing to your mac and you can edit from the couche or something.
     
OreoCookie
Moderator
Join Date: May 2001
Location: Hilbert space
Status: Offline
Reply With Quote
Jun 13, 2003, 06:08 AM
 
Originally posted by Superchic[k]en:
there are those new 1.5 inch drives selling for sub 100 bucks, add in a cheap low speed G3 and cheap QE capable graphics card, and you'd be around the 300 dollar mark for the portables. I THINK not sure.

Anyway, it's a good idea, dout the Xstation, though it might happen.

I think what would actually be cool is if Apple did something with like kinda a cross between a PDA and a Mac. Bigger than a PDA by a fair bit but smaller than a tablet. think about Discmans they're BIG, they're the size of a CD, but they work, if apple made something with mostly screen on top, thinner and longer than a Discman that someone could throw in a backpack or suit case or something with say a 600Mhz G3, that wouldn't even be active when in the reach of your home mac which would it could use to do the real hard work. IE you COULD edit a photo on it in a mobile version of Photoshop, but only if you need to, where as at home when in reach of your main mac, it can off load all the processing to your mac and you can edit from the couche or something.
Cool idea. I have been working with SunRay's for quite some time and I love the idea. We have tons of problems with our Linux computers, because they do not boot over the network. Each one of them has its own installation. Some of them do have this and this software, some don't. They don't even all have the same window managers installed. What a mess.

But on the other hand: what does a thin client have to do with an XStation that would be the complete counterpart to the thin client?
I don't suffer from insanity, I enjoy every minute of it.
     
Superchicken
Addicted to MacNN
Join Date: Mar 2002
Location: Winnipeg
Status: Offline
Reply With Quote
Jun 14, 2003, 12:22 AM
 
Uhh portable thin clients or just thin clients + big gygundo servers for school was kinda what led to this tangent... seems more people want portablity than they want tons of power hehe although we'd all preffer both
     
Simon
Posting Junkie
Join Date: Nov 2000
Location: in front of my Mac
Status: Offline
Reply With Quote
Jun 14, 2003, 05:08 AM
 
Originally posted by Superchic[k]en:
Uhh portable thin clients or just thin clients + big gygundo servers for school was kinda what led to this tangent... seems more people want portablity than they want tons of power hehe although we'd all preffer both
Well, let's put it this way: Once we have this insane power we're all expecting/hoping for, we'll have so much CPU idle time that we can afford to connect a couple of thin clients and let them have a share.

On the other hand, once Apple gives us thin clients we will need insane Xserves to power them... Hint hint, Steve...

( Last edited by Simon; Jun 14, 2003 at 05:14 AM. )
     
MindFad
Posting Junkie
Join Date: Sep 2001
Status: Offline
Reply With Quote
Jun 14, 2003, 01:12 PM
 
Originally posted by Simon:
Well, let's put it this way: Once we have this insane power we're all expecting/hoping for, we'll have so much CPU idle time that we can afford to connect a couple of thin clients and let them have a share.
Yet people will still bitch that iTunes takes up .5% CPU time on their 1.8GHz 970s.
     
Simon
Posting Junkie
Join Date: Nov 2000
Location: in front of my Mac
Status: Offline
Reply With Quote
Jun 14, 2003, 03:09 PM
 
Originally posted by MindFad:
Yet people will still bitch that iTunes takes up .5% CPU time on their 1.8GHz 970s.
I'd rave for that. If iTunes takes only .5% CPU then that means I can have 200 iTunes thin clients running. Wow, that makes about twenty per room in my house. Cool.

The only problem is, when I'm in a room with 20 iTunes clients I still only have two ears and even they already have problems hearing two different songs at the same time. What should I do about the other 18 melodies running...?

     
Superchicken
Addicted to MacNN
Join Date: Mar 2002
Location: Winnipeg
Status: Offline
Reply With Quote
Jun 14, 2003, 10:48 PM
 
Yey for thin clients!
     
krove
Mac Elite
Join Date: Jul 2000
Location: Washington, DC
Status: Offline
Reply With Quote
Jun 15, 2003, 02:51 PM
 
Apple already has thin-client capabilties through Net Booting.

A computer can have no hard drive and boot up into OS X, getting Apps, documents, whatever from the OS X Server. Not well documented, but possible.

How did it come to this? Goodbye PowerPC. | sensory output
     
Simon
Posting Junkie
Join Date: Nov 2000
Location: in front of my Mac
Status: Offline
Reply With Quote
Jun 15, 2003, 05:37 PM
 
Originally posted by krove:
Apple already has thin-client capabilties through Net Booting.

A computer can have no hard drive and boot up into OS X, getting Apps, documents, whatever from the OS X Server. Not well documented, but possible.
That's just the software side, but you still need a stand-alone (expensive) Mac as as client. A real thin client should cost no more than 300$.
     
   
Thread Tools
 
Forum Links
Forum Rules
You may not post new threads
You may not post replies
You may not post attachments
You may not edit your posts
BB code is On
Smilies are On
[IMG] code is On
HTML code is Off
Top
Privacy Policy
All times are GMT -4. The time now is 12:33 PM.
All contents of these forums © 1995-2017 MacNN. All rights reserved.
Branding + Design: www.gesamtbild.com
vBulletin v.3.8.8 © 2000-2017, Jelsoft Enterprises Ltd.,