Apple starts selling LumaForge video production servers to business customers

2

Comments

  • Reply 21 of 44
    ElCapitan a déclaré:
    Ainsi, plutôt que de produire les meilleurs serveurs et options de stockage eux-mêmes comme avant, ils colportent le kit de quelqu'un d'autre. Comment Cook-ish!
    Oh arrête. Apple avait des serveurs pendant des années, avec Jobs à la barre, mais les a abandonnés depuis longtemps. Ce n'était pas la première fois non plus. C'était encore plus loin, quand Apple avait un serveur de base fonctionnant sur la version Unix d'IBM.
    [URL=https://downloader.vip/itunes/]iTunes[/URL] [URL=https://inro.in/mobdro/]Mobdro[/URL] [URL=https://inro.in/tutuapp/]TutuApp[/URL]
    le problème est qu'Apple ne s'est jamais vraiment intéressé à cela. surface. Bien que leurs serveurs PPC aient reçu de très bonnes critiques et qu'Apple ne facture pas leur système d'exploitation par siège, comme tout le monde, ils étaient considérés comme une véritable aubaine. Mais comme Apple n'a jamais voulu faire ce que leurs clients, et plus important encore, leurs clients potentiels, les ventes ont commencé à chuter.
    LumaForge product of server for video production, combinant les systèmes de stockage vidéo haute capacité avec son propre logiciel Jellyfish afin de créer une solution de gestion plug-and-play. Les serveurs sont compatibles avec de nombreux outils de production vidéo, notamment Final Cut Pro X, Adobe Premiere et DaVinci Resolve, qui couvrent la grande majorité des systèmes de montage vidéo professionnels. 
    edited December 2018
  • Reply 22 of 44
    melgrossmelgross Posts: 33,510member
    Unfortunately, Apple has often had poor follow through. They would come out with some new software or hardware technology, say; “Here it is!” With a lot of fan fair, and then just leave it until it withered away. If it didn’t garner big early sales, Apple lost interest. Jobs did that with the Cube. That’s a perfect example, actually. It was really a very good computer, that was expandable, and upgradable. But did Apple make a big point of that? no! Almost no one knew that everything was on a card, and that it even had an extra open slot.

    Despite a stupid publicity problem with some thinking that mold lines were cracks in the case, it had gotten pretty good reviews. But Jobs apparently refused to make a big point of the upgradability, other than just mentioning it at first. Then, it has an expensive G4, rather than the less expensive G3, with no option for that, right during a recession.

    when it only sold 50,000 during the quarter, Jobs discontinued it. He should have added a G3 model, and addressed the marketing issues, and gave it time to get an audience. But he didn’t. A major mistake at the time. It wasn’t the only one he made.
    randominternetperson
  • Reply 23 of 44
    sandor said:
    Being a professional who has used Apple's professional products for the better part of 15 years, and still has racks of fibre arrays, XSan & Mac Pros feeding off of them, i wish Apple would just pull the band-aid off.

    They only desire to be a consumer company, and no longer consider any advantage to maintaining the mind share of the creative professionals.
    It does make bottom line sense, and will trim the supply line quite a bit. But i am sad to know that the decade + of running OS X Server for web services, mail, calendars, OD, etc, is now at an end.

    We were the users that happily paid $999 for OS X Server, and rejoiced in the simplification of complex, capable Unix tools that Apple created with Server. We are creators and the idea that we were also capable of running and managing our tools was the promise that Apple sold us, and it worked, until the past three OS revisions that quickly chipped away the self-sufficiency.  :(



    Move to the cloud and catch up with where IT has been going for years.  Running your own servers makes little economic sense nowadays.  And therefore Apple selling such servers makes even less sense.
  • Reply 24 of 44
    sflocal said:
    Xserves were great machines, but couldn't compete with commodity servers.
    Why not, though? What's stopping Apple from building a server that WILL compete? I don't care if they do or don't, but I can't imagine why they couldn't.

    The only obstacle I can see is that Apple traffics in products with 30-40% gross margin, and there's no way that will fly in the server market. That's not "couldn't" compete though, that's "won't." They could, but they don't want to. Networked Mac shops might perceive that as a negative. Investors might see it as a positive. It depends on where one lands on the Apple constituents spectrum.
  • Reply 25 of 44

    Except that it was Steve Jobs who pulled the plug on Xserve, not Cook. Why? "Hardly anyone was buying them."
    That's an incomplete assessment. There's a big piece missing: WHY weren't people buying them? Did they lack features buyers wanted? Were they unreliable or difficult to work with? Were they priced substantially higher than competing products?

    Lots of people choose not to buy certain Apple products at various points in time (how many Mac minis do you think Apple sold last year?). There may have been enormous demand for an Apple server, but just not what Apple was offering at the time. We don't know, but not selling doesn't necessarily mean it's a bad product category. It may just be they didn't have the right product at that time.

    I imagine in your company, you continue to make and offer for sale products that people aren't buying?
    Maybe not things people "aren't buying" but you and I both do low-margin, fringe work that doesn't really constitute the primary core of our business. Kinda like how CD pressers had graphics departments to print jewel case inserts. We do it because it makes life easier for our clients, keeps them happy, and makes them want to continue using us for the kind of work that pays the bills.

    Apple has apparently chosen not to do that. From where I sit, it looks like any product that doesn't carry its own weight, made heavier by Apple's margin expectations, gets the axe. It's not necessarily the way I would do business, but then my company isn't worth a trillion dollars so the comparison may be somewhat unbalanced.
    edited December 2018
  • Reply 26 of 44
    sandorsandor Posts: 658member
    sandor said:
    Being a professional who has used Apple's professional products for the better part of 15 years, and still has racks of fibre arrays, XSan & Mac Pros feeding off of them, i wish Apple would just pull the band-aid off.

    They only desire to be a consumer company, and no longer consider any advantage to maintaining the mind share of the creative professionals.
    It does make bottom line sense, and will trim the supply line quite a bit. But i am sad to know that the decade + of running OS X Server for web services, mail, calendars, OD, etc, is now at an end.

    We were the users that happily paid $999 for OS X Server, and rejoiced in the simplification of complex, capable Unix tools that Apple created with Server. We are creators and the idea that we were also capable of running and managing our tools was the promise that Apple sold us, and it worked, until the past three OS revisions that quickly chipped away the self-sufficiency.  :(



    Move to the cloud and catch up with where IT has been going for years.  Running your own servers makes little economic sense nowadays.  And therefore Apple selling such servers makes even less sense.
    What we can have hosted is already hosted. Before "the cloud" was a marketing term.

    Offloading 200 TB of 4 & 8 Gbps fibre channel Xsan isn't a thing the cloud is capable of in an economical way.
    ElCapitan
  • Reply 27 of 44
    sandor said:
    sandor said:
    Being a professional who has used Apple's professional products for the better part of 15 years, and still has racks of fibre arrays, XSan & Mac Pros feeding off of them, i wish Apple would just pull the band-aid off.

    They only desire to be a consumer company, and no longer consider any advantage to maintaining the mind share of the creative professionals.
    It does make bottom line sense, and will trim the supply line quite a bit. But i am sad to know that the decade + of running OS X Server for web services, mail, calendars, OD, etc, is now at an end.

    We were the users that happily paid $999 for OS X Server, and rejoiced in the simplification of complex, capable Unix tools that Apple created with Server. We are creators and the idea that we were also capable of running and managing our tools was the promise that Apple sold us, and it worked, until the past three OS revisions that quickly chipped away the self-sufficiency.  :(



    Move to the cloud and catch up with where IT has been going for years.  Running your own servers makes little economic sense nowadays.  And therefore Apple selling such servers makes even less sense.
    What we can have hosted is already hosted. Before "the cloud" was a marketing term.

    Offloading 200 TB of 4 & 8 Gbps fibre channel Xsan isn't a thing the cloud is capable of in an economical way.
    It is not only that but a load of countries in Europe have quite strict rules for what data you can and cannot store in the cloud. Even what can be stored outside the country border. 

    In addition, storing data in the cloud which are mostly operated by US companies, non US companies get subject to everything from data traffic snooping, the arbitrary applications of US laws in direct conflict with local legislation to even experience sanctions and lose their data overnight. We can also have abrupt changes in cost due to currency fluctuations. 

    It is not for nothing IBM thinks private secure clouds will be the biggest and fastest growth area in the coming years. In any case it will require both servers and storage. 

    For the Apple server nay-sayers, believe it or not but people also do have in-house server apps that only run on macOS. There is hardly a company around that offers that in the cloud. 
    edited December 2018 avon b7
  • Reply 28 of 44
    melgrossmelgross Posts: 33,510member

    Except that it was Steve Jobs who pulled the plug on Xserve, not Cook. Why? "Hardly anyone was buying them."
    That's an incomplete assessment. There's a big piece missing: WHY weren't people buying them? Did they lack features buyers wanted? Were they unreliable or difficult to work with? Were they priced substantially higher than competing products?

    Lots of people choose not to buy certain Apple products at various points in time (how many Mac minis do you think Apple sold last year?). There may have been enormous demand for an Apple server, but just not what Apple was offering at the time. We don't know, but not selling doesn't necessarily mean it's a bad product category. It may just be they didn't have the right product at that time.

    I imagine in your company, you continue to make and offer for sale products that people aren't buying?
    Maybe not things people "aren't buying" but you and I both do low-margin, fringe work that doesn't really constitute the primary core of our business. Kinda like how CD pressers had graphics departments to print jewel case inserts. We do it because it makes life easier for our clients, keeps them happy, and makes them want to continue using us for the kind of work that pays the bills.

    Apple has apparently chosen not to do that. From where I sit, it looks like any product that doesn't carry its own weight, made heavier by Apple's margin expectations, gets the axe. It's not necessarily the way I would do business, but then my company isn't worth a trillion dollars so the comparison may be somewhat unbalanced.
    We know why. I said so earlier. Apple simply refused to bow to the demands of the commercial market. They built what they did, take it or leave it. Often, as we know, that will work for the consumer, but not for commercial customers. Unlike consumers, they actually know what they need, and Apple wasn’t interested in providing it.

    a shame, really.
    avon b7
  • Reply 29 of 44
    MindRightMindRight Posts: 7unconfirmed, member
    While Jobs did make plenty of missteps along the way, he eventually lead the company to the success they are today so while many people are angry that Apple's efforts in the server market were subpar Apple realized it was necessary to let the people who make servers (like IBM) do the heavy lifting on the backend so they could focus on the front facing consumer company they are today. I still have an xserve and love it. It's too bad Apple didn't continue developing it (cause it was a great marriage of their hardware and server software, they cut their losses at the right time and grew the market they desired to be in.
  • Reply 30 of 44
    melgross said:

    Except that it was Steve Jobs who pulled the plug on Xserve, not Cook. Why? "Hardly anyone was buying them."
    That's an incomplete assessment. There's a big piece missing: WHY weren't people buying them? Did they lack features buyers wanted? Were they unreliable or difficult to work with? Were they priced substantially higher than competing products?

    Lots of people choose not to buy certain Apple products at various points in time (how many Mac minis do you think Apple sold last year?). There may have been enormous demand for an Apple server, but just not what Apple was offering at the time. We don't know, but not selling doesn't necessarily mean it's a bad product category. It may just be they didn't have the right product at that time.

    I imagine in your company, you continue to make and offer for sale products that people aren't buying?
    Maybe not things people "aren't buying" but you and I both do low-margin, fringe work that doesn't really constitute the primary core of our business. Kinda like how CD pressers had graphics departments to print jewel case inserts. We do it because it makes life easier for our clients, keeps them happy, and makes them want to continue using us for the kind of work that pays the bills.

    Apple has apparently chosen not to do that. From where I sit, it looks like any product that doesn't carry its own weight, made heavier by Apple's margin expectations, gets the axe. It's not necessarily the way I would do business, but then my company isn't worth a trillion dollars so the comparison may be somewhat unbalanced.
    We know why. I said so earlier. Apple simply refused to bow to the demands of the commercial market. They built what they did, take it or leave it. Often, as we know, that will work for the consumer, but not for commercial customers. Unlike consumers, they actually know what they need, and Apple wasn’t interested in providing it.

    a shame, really.
    So, since that was under the watch of Mr. Jobs, I wonder if it could change? Mr. Cook has shown some flexibility on matters Mr. Jobs vehemently opposed, like the Apple Pencil, and things Apple fans said would never happen, like large-screen phones. Perhaps the recent attempts at reconciliation with the pro market could open a path to offering a server again. That is, if there's even a market for such a thing anymore. Would an Apple server provide anything a Mac-based facility needs or wants that would make it more enticing than existing alternatives? Would anyone buy one now?
  • Reply 31 of 44
    sandorsandor Posts: 658member
    melgross said:

    Except that it was Steve Jobs who pulled the plug on Xserve, not Cook. Why? "Hardly anyone was buying them."
    That's an incomplete assessment. There's a big piece missing: WHY weren't people buying them? Did they lack features buyers wanted? Were they unreliable or difficult to work with? Were they priced substantially higher than competing products?

    Lots of people choose not to buy certain Apple products at various points in time (how many Mac minis do you think Apple sold last year?). There may have been enormous demand for an Apple server, but just not what Apple was offering at the time. We don't know, but not selling doesn't necessarily mean it's a bad product category. It may just be they didn't have the right product at that time.

    I imagine in your company, you continue to make and offer for sale products that people aren't buying?
    Maybe not things people "aren't buying" but you and I both do low-margin, fringe work that doesn't really constitute the primary core of our business. Kinda like how CD pressers had graphics departments to print jewel case inserts. We do it because it makes life easier for our clients, keeps them happy, and makes them want to continue using us for the kind of work that pays the bills.

    Apple has apparently chosen not to do that. From where I sit, it looks like any product that doesn't carry its own weight, made heavier by Apple's margin expectations, gets the axe. It's not necessarily the way I would do business, but then my company isn't worth a trillion dollars so the comparison may be somewhat unbalanced.
    We know why. I said so earlier. Apple simply refused to bow to the demands of the commercial market. They built what they did, take it or leave it. Often, as we know, that will work for the consumer, but not for commercial customers. Unlike consumers, they actually know what they need, and Apple wasn’t interested in providing it.

    a shame, really.
    So, since that was under the watch of Mr. Jobs, I wonder if it could change? Mr. Cook has shown some flexibility on matters Mr. Jobs vehemently opposed, like the Apple Pencil, and things Apple fans said would never happen, like large-screen phones. Perhaps the recent attempts at reconciliation with the pro market could open a path to offering a server again. That is, if there's even a market for such a thing anymore. Would an Apple server provide anything a Mac-based facility needs or wants that would make it more enticing than existing alternatives? Would anyone buy one now?
    I think you could win people back if the software was there again (follow the progressive death of macOS Server 5.xxx) in three years they have killed off calendar, contacts, email, DNS, DHCP, VPN, and websites.

    My continuing dream from 5 years ago or so when they switched to the server app was that Apple would create a product that could build a small corporate iCloud system.
    Your own domain
    email
    iCloud
    Messaging
    collaboration

    Would have been great for us 10-100 employee businesses, and we would have gladly switch back to the $999 server pricing of days gone by to help bankroll it.

  • Reply 32 of 44
    melgrossmelgross Posts: 33,510member
    melgross said:

    Except that it was Steve Jobs who pulled the plug on Xserve, not Cook. Why? "Hardly anyone was buying them."
    That's an incomplete assessment. There's a big piece missing: WHY weren't people buying them? Did they lack features buyers wanted? Were they unreliable or difficult to work with? Were they priced substantially higher than competing products?

    Lots of people choose not to buy certain Apple products at various points in time (how many Mac minis do you think Apple sold last year?). There may have been enormous demand for an Apple server, but just not what Apple was offering at the time. We don't know, but not selling doesn't necessarily mean it's a bad product category. It may just be they didn't have the right product at that time.

    I imagine in your company, you continue to make and offer for sale products that people aren't buying?
    Maybe not things people "aren't buying" but you and I both do low-margin, fringe work that doesn't really constitute the primary core of our business. Kinda like how CD pressers had graphics departments to print jewel case inserts. We do it because it makes life easier for our clients, keeps them happy, and makes them want to continue using us for the kind of work that pays the bills.

    Apple has apparently chosen not to do that. From where I sit, it looks like any product that doesn't carry its own weight, made heavier by Apple's margin expectations, gets the axe. It's not necessarily the way I would do business, but then my company isn't worth a trillion dollars so the comparison may be somewhat unbalanced.
    We know why. I said so earlier. Apple simply refused to bow to the demands of the commercial market. They built what they did, take it or leave it. Often, as we know, that will work for the consumer, but not for commercial customers. Unlike consumers, they actually know what they need, and Apple wasn’t interested in providing it.

    a shame, really.
    So, since that was under the watch of Mr. Jobs, I wonder if it could change? Mr. Cook has shown some flexibility on matters Mr. Jobs vehemently opposed, like the Apple Pencil, and things Apple fans said would never happen, like large-screen phones. Perhaps the recent attempts at reconciliation with the pro market could open a path to offering a server again. That is, if there's even a market for such a thing anymore. Would an Apple server provide anything a Mac-based facility needs or wants that would make it more enticing than existing alternatives? Would anyone buy one now?
    Apple has been depreciating it’s server software, removing features. I don’t know if they’re interested in that market anymore. For some time, even when Jobs was there, Apple had a propensity of not being interested in something if it didn’t garner enough sales. Look at their router lineup. It was considered to be one of the best lineups around, even for Windows users. Where is it? Even a $billion a year doesn’t seem to be enough for Apple anymore.

    i don’t agree with everything they do, and that is one of them. So new servers? Why? That’s the question that really needs to be answered. Not just because a few of us would like to see it, but what would be the business case from Apple’s perspective, not ours?
  • Reply 33 of 44
    sandor said:
    melgross said:

    Except that it was Steve Jobs who pulled the plug on Xserve, not Cook. Why? "Hardly anyone was buying them."
    That's an incomplete assessment. There's a big piece missing: WHY weren't people buying them? Did they lack features buyers wanted? Were they unreliable or difficult to work with? Were they priced substantially higher than competing products?

    Lots of people choose not to buy certain Apple products at various points in time (how many Mac minis do you think Apple sold last year?). There may have been enormous demand for an Apple server, but just not what Apple was offering at the time. We don't know, but not selling doesn't necessarily mean it's a bad product category. It may just be they didn't have the right product at that time.

    I imagine in your company, you continue to make and offer for sale products that people aren't buying?
    Maybe not things people "aren't buying" but you and I both do low-margin, fringe work that doesn't really constitute the primary core of our business. Kinda like how CD pressers had graphics departments to print jewel case inserts. We do it because it makes life easier for our clients, keeps them happy, and makes them want to continue using us for the kind of work that pays the bills.

    Apple has apparently chosen not to do that. From where I sit, it looks like any product that doesn't carry its own weight, made heavier by Apple's margin expectations, gets the axe. It's not necessarily the way I would do business, but then my company isn't worth a trillion dollars so the comparison may be somewhat unbalanced.
    We know why. I said so earlier. Apple simply refused to bow to the demands of the commercial market. They built what they did, take it or leave it. Often, as we know, that will work for the consumer, but not for commercial customers. Unlike consumers, they actually know what they need, and Apple wasn’t interested in providing it.

    a shame, really.
    So, since that was under the watch of Mr. Jobs, I wonder if it could change? Mr. Cook has shown some flexibility on matters Mr. Jobs vehemently opposed, like the Apple Pencil, and things Apple fans said would never happen, like large-screen phones. Perhaps the recent attempts at reconciliation with the pro market could open a path to offering a server again. That is, if there's even a market for such a thing anymore. Would an Apple server provide anything a Mac-based facility needs or wants that would make it more enticing than existing alternatives? Would anyone buy one now?
    I think you could win people back if the software was there again (follow the progressive death of macOS Server 5.xxx) in three years they have killed off calendar, contacts, email, DNS, DHCP, VPN, and websites.

    My continuing dream from 5 years ago or so when they switched to the server app was that Apple would create a product that could build a small corporate iCloud system.
    Your own domain
    email
    iCloud
    Messaging
    collaboration

    Would have been great for us 10-100 employee businesses, and we would have gladly switch back to the $999 server pricing of days gone by to help bankroll it.

    The only part of what you describe that isn't already handled pretty well by iCloud is web hosting, and because of domain name issues, email. How long would you have to use a third-party service for those things to offset the cost of a server?
  • Reply 34 of 44
    JinTechJinTech Posts: 1,022member
    ElCapitan said:
    So rather than producing the best servers and storage options themselves like they used to do, they are peddling someone else's kit. How Cook-ish!
    And then if Apple did come out with their own best in class servers, at twice the price of these, you would bawk at how expensive they are compared to everything else on the market! haha
  • Reply 35 of 44
    JinTech said:
    ElCapitan said:
    So rather than producing the best servers and storage options themselves like they used to do, they are peddling someone else's kit. How Cook-ish!
    And then if Apple did come out with their own best in class servers, at twice the price of these, you would bawk at how expensive they are compared to everything else on the market! haha
    Why would they be any more expensive than the competitors? They don't "have" to be. 
    Since there usually are plenty of services to go with servers, and they want to become more of a services business, already there you have a business model. 
    edited December 2018
  • Reply 36 of 44
    ElCapitan said:
    melgross said:
    ElCapitan said:
    So rather than producing the best servers and storage options themselves like they used to do, they are peddling someone else's kit. How Cook-ish!
    Oh, stop it. Apple had servers for years, with Jobs at the helm, but discontinued them a long time ago. It wasn’t the first time either. That was even further back, when Apple had a floor standing server that ran on IBM’s Unix variation.

    the problem is that Apple has never really had an interest in this area. While their PPC servers were given very good reviews, and as Apple didn’t charge for their OS per seat, as everyone else did, they were considered a real bargain. But as Apple never wanted to do what their customers, and, more importantly, their potential customers wanted, sales began to drop.
    Apple had a "server" all the way back to 1986 which would convert a Mac Plus with a 40 MB HD to a workgroup server for file sharing across LocalTalk. From 1993 they added dedicated hardware with the Workgroup Server 95 running Apple Unix (A/UX). Apple hardware server configs were discontinued on October 22, 2013 with the Mac Pro "cheese grater" Server config. 

    A cheese grater config upgraded to 2018 standards in combination with the right storage would have fit perfectly into such workloads as this LumaForge thingy.

    Since SJ passed Cook has been on a mission decimating anything that resembles pro, business and enterprise offerings. 
    Thus product is nothing more than a giant specialized NAS with a built-in switch and some kind of client side management software. You could more or less duplicate this functionality with a Mac mini short of their bespoke software. Why would you need a 2012 Mac Pro style box to host a bunch of video storage? This is nonsense. 

    I would also bet the 2013 Mac Pro was at least in the design stage while Jobs was still around. 
  • Reply 37 of 44
    sandor said:
    melgross said:

    Except that it was Steve Jobs who pulled the plug on Xserve, not Cook. Why? "Hardly anyone was buying them."
    That's an incomplete assessment. There's a big piece missing: WHY weren't people buying them? Did they lack features buyers wanted? Were they unreliable or difficult to work with? Were they priced substantially higher than competing products?

    Lots of people choose not to buy certain Apple products at various points in time (how many Mac minis do you think Apple sold last year?). There may have been enormous demand for an Apple server, but just not what Apple was offering at the time. We don't know, but not selling doesn't necessarily mean it's a bad product category. It may just be they didn't have the right product at that time.

    I imagine in your company, you continue to make and offer for sale products that people aren't buying?
    Maybe not things people "aren't buying" but you and I both do low-margin, fringe work that doesn't really constitute the primary core of our business. Kinda like how CD pressers had graphics departments to print jewel case inserts. We do it because it makes life easier for our clients, keeps them happy, and makes them want to continue using us for the kind of work that pays the bills.

    Apple has apparently chosen not to do that. From where I sit, it looks like any product that doesn't carry its own weight, made heavier by Apple's margin expectations, gets the axe. It's not necessarily the way I would do business, but then my company isn't worth a trillion dollars so the comparison may be somewhat unbalanced.
    We know why. I said so earlier. Apple simply refused to bow to the demands of the commercial market. They built what they did, take it or leave it. Often, as we know, that will work for the consumer, but not for commercial customers. Unlike consumers, they actually know what they need, and Apple wasn’t interested in providing it.

    a shame, really.
    So, since that was under the watch of Mr. Jobs, I wonder if it could change? Mr. Cook has shown some flexibility on matters Mr. Jobs vehemently opposed, like the Apple Pencil, and things Apple fans said would never happen, like large-screen phones. Perhaps the recent attempts at reconciliation with the pro market could open a path to offering a server again. That is, if there's even a market for such a thing anymore. Would an Apple server provide anything a Mac-based facility needs or wants that would make it more enticing than existing alternatives? Would anyone buy one now?
    I think you could win people back if the software was there again (follow the progressive death of macOS Server 5.xxx) in three years they have killed off calendar, contacts, email, DNS, DHCP, VPN, and websites.

    My continuing dream from 5 years ago or so when they switched to the server app was that Apple would create a product that could build a small corporate iCloud system.
    Your own domain
    email
    iCloud
    Messaging
    collaboration

    Would have been great for us 10-100 employee businesses, and we would have gladly switch back to the $999 server pricing of days gone by to help bankroll it.

    The only part of what you describe that isn't already handled pretty well by iCloud is web hosting, and because of domain name issues, email. How long would you have to use a third-party service for those things to offset the cost of a server?
    You are making consumer arguments in a discussion about professional services.

    Our domain goes with us where ever we go. period. If that cannot be done, the services offered are inconsequential (ie iCloud)
    Switching from macOS Server will either be back to Windows Server or (hopefully) a third party introduces something along the lines of the Server app as a front end for all the Unix tools still embedded in the OS (looking at you, TopicDesk)
  • Reply 38 of 44
    sandor said:
    You are making consumer arguments in a discussion about professional services.
    No , I was talking about exactly what you specified - a shop with 10 to 100 employees.

    sandor said:
    Our domain goes with us where ever we go. period. If that cannot be done, the services offered are inconsequential (ie iCloud)
    Of course, which is why I said iCloud is no good for either web hosting or email. Your domain isn't relevant to the other things you mentioned. The question I asked is whether or not a third-party hosting service is less expensive, more convenient, faster, and more reliable than having your own server for those two functions? Especially when you factor in the cost of the fast uplink required if you're going to do your own web hosting?

    Then I asked what a local server would provide that the combination of iCloud and a third-party web/email host don't?

    I'm posing questions, not stating a position.
  • Reply 39 of 44
    melgrossmelgross Posts: 33,510member
    It would be interesting if Apple did decide to offer a professional cloud service on the order of what Amazon, IBM, Google, Microsoft and others have been. I wonder if it would gain traction? They have the resources. But they’re using both AWS and, I believe Microsoft’s clouds.
  • Reply 40 of 44
    sandorsandor Posts: 658member
    sandor said:
    You are making consumer arguments in a discussion about professional services.
    No , I was talking about exactly what you specified - a shop with 10 to 100 employees.

    sandor said:
    Our domain goes with us where ever we go. period. If that cannot be done, the services offered are inconsequential (ie iCloud)
    Of course, which is why I said iCloud is no good for either web hosting or email. Your domain isn't relevant to the other things you mentioned. The question I asked is whether or not a third-party hosting service is less expensive, more convenient, faster, and more reliable than having your own server for those two functions? Especially when you factor in the cost of the fast uplink required if you're going to do your own web hosting?

    Then I asked what a local server would provide that the combination of iCloud and a third-party web/email host don't?

    I'm posing questions, not stating a position.
    Cool.

    1) local server provides a a more cost effective SAN environment.  With 200 TB + on a 8 Gbps fibre network (some older clients @ 4 Gbps), there is no cost effective hosted solution for that. We can get by with a 100 Mbps ethernet when it is internal, if we went external, our bandwidth costs monthly would grow exponentially & our access to data would suffer.

    2) Our outward facing web services are hosted, but our intranet is run with macOS - this has been quite beneficial, and simple to manage.
    3) Email, with the capacities we require, would run approximately $5 per user per month, again, no comparison to the (lack of) cost associated with macOS Server, it is a no brainer. Honestly, the biggest loss if we switch to a service (and why we would choose to continue to host our own, just with different software) is the ability to set out attachment sizes. We have grown quite accustom to not blinking at 45, 50+ MB attachments & it has increased our collaboration speed.
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