A new thought about Apple licensing
I was kind of wondering if it would help Apple's foray into the corporate market to maybe create a version of Mac OS X Server in cooperation with IBM to use on the Power4 servers. The processor architecture is similar, they would need ot beef up the server tools some by essentially porting from the current UNIX tools being run on them, but this would establish some major credibility, plus it would help IBM by giving them some of the easiest to configure Big Iron out there. They would have to support JFS2 and a couple of other IBM legacy stuff
So instead of losing at the low end margin, they could gain in a market which they have nothing close in price. Mutual gain for both IBM and Apple.
So instead of losing at the low end margin, they could gain in a market which they have nothing close in price. Mutual gain for both IBM and Apple.
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Originally posted by TKN
I was kind of wondering if it would help Apple's foray into the corporate market to maybe create a version of Mac OS X Server in cooperation with IBM to use on the Power4 servers. The processor architecture is similar, they would need ot beef up the server tools some by essentially porting from the current UNIX tools being run on them, but this would establish some major credibility, plus it would help IBM by giving them some of the easiest to configure Big Iron out there. They would have to support JFS2 and a couple of other IBM legacy stuff
So instead of losing at the low end margin, they could gain in a market which they have nothing close in price. Mutual gain for both IBM and Apple.
Not gonna happen
IBM pushes AIX and now Linux on these servers, why would they want to cut their profits and go through hassle of adopting OS X?
There are couple more things they would need to address other than JFS2...
LPARs, DB2, backup, Hardware, etc... What for?
Apple maked most of its cash in hardware. Apple has a line-up of servers and knows it's market, the IBM servers in question are not geared at Apple's target and the current OSs that run on them work fine. Shure having OSX Server on that hardware would make an admins life easy but the kind of personal that would work/use IBMs high end servers is not your average Joe that needs that kind of ease.
Now I could see them using Darwin... with the right effort Darwin could be a great tool/OS for such servers.
Originally posted by \\/\\/ickes
I don't think it will happen...
Apple maked most of its cash in hardware. Apple has a line-up of servers and knows it's market, the IBM servers in question are not geared at Apple's target and the current OSs that run on them work fine. Shure having OSX Server on that hardware would make an admins life easy but the kind of personal that would work/use IBMs high end servers is not your average Joe that needs that kind of ease.
Now I could see them using Darwin... with the right effort Darwin could be a great tool/OS for such servers.
Admins don't have too much work with these machines anyways.
When you buy one usually IBM sets it up for you (either through their business partners, or they send their engineer(s) if you're big enough). Once it's set-up all you do is to install patches and that's usually again handled by IBM as customers usually sign service agreements.
No-one would buy these servers just because they can run OS X now.
Originally posted by TKN
I was kind of wondering if it would help Apple's foray into the corporate market to maybe create a version of Mac OS X Server in cooperation with IBM to use on the Power4 servers. The processor architecture is similar, they would need ot beef up the server tools some by essentially porting from the current UNIX tools being run on them, but this would establish some major credibility, plus it would help IBM by giving them some of the easiest to configure Big Iron out there. They would have to support JFS2 and a couple of other IBM legacy stuff
So instead of losing at the low end margin, they could gain in a market which they have nothing close in price. Mutual gain for both IBM and Apple.
Most people on this forum don't know that IBM licensed MacOS X when it was called "NeXTstep." Parts of the OS/2 GUI, Presentation Manager, was based on NeXTstep. It would be interesting to research the current status of that agreement. Steve Jobs has hinted that about licensing MacOS X. I have always felt that going downmarket would be suicide and is not going to happen. However, an upmarket strategy would be a winner for all concerned. Having Apple develop the OS for high-end severs and workstations would free their vendors to concentration on what they do best, hardware. It would allow hardware vendors to offer solutions that incorporated but mission-critical hardware with a dramatically widened spectrum of productivity software. This would also give Apple the caché of having its OS support the most respected hardware on the market. The Windows weenies would not know how to act. Imagine a world where MacOS X meant 3-D medical imaging, but Windows meant games for teenage boys.
Originally posted by \\/\\/ickes
I don't think it will happen...
Apple maked most of its cash in hardware.
But they could make a little extra running on hardware that Apple's never going to make themselves, and it would be lucrative high-end stuff rather than the cutthroat commodity market.
With virtual machines all the rage now, I could see a big IBM box running Linux and AIX and OS X Server all at once. This allows Apple to offer end-to-end solutions without going head to head against IBM and HP and others in the big iron market.
IBM might be for it just because a Mac installation is a whole bunch of PowerPCs sold, which is a bonus for them, it's a UNIX rollout, which is broadly compatible with their Linux strategy while punting the Linux-on-the-desktop bugbear, and it erodes Windows' market share in enterprise, which IBM is keen on.
IBM would be more than happy to offer the whole solution. They know where the money in enterprise is: In the big, multi-year support contracts. That's been their specialty for decades.
Come to think of it, when was Apple ever credible with the enterprise? Perhaps a dozen years ago or so?
corporate market. I remember reading from other posts that
basically the problem is the price. Most businesses will keep
their monitors longer than the computers making iMacs a more
expensive purchase.
The problem though of having a cheap cube-like computers is
that it would eat into consumer sales. You think Apple could do
something like have a minimum purchase order of 6 cube-like
computers for corporate sales. Wouldn't that be a decent idea?
Then the eMac should be a g4 pizza box for $699 or $999 with the same monitor.