5 ms·

It would seem really out of character for Apple to make a move in the server space.

by skohan 6y ago

Someone1234 6y ago
Or heck even just the general purpose chip space in general. Apple's current ARM offerings are strictly locked to their own hardware, and there's been no hints that they may move into the ARM-PC space selling general purpose chips and letting other vendors produce board. I'd expect to see that first before an Apple silicon powered server.
- skohan 6y ago
  Yeah Apple's never been a component company, they're all about vertical integration. Still it's hard to imagine if they actually do end up producing the best price/performance processors that these would be relegated to consumer products given the massive opportunity it would represent in the server space for cloud-based companies to bring down costs.
grecy 6y ago
We know they have tens of thousands of linux boxes running iCloud and the App Store and whatever else... if they can use their own ARM servers and reduce electricity use by 50%[1], you've gotta think they're looking serious at that, purely for themselves. Not to mention buying their own hardware will obviously save them. [1] https://twitter.com/ajassy/status/1318930486517927937?s=20 https://twitter.com/ajassy/status/1318930486517927937?s=20
- usrusr 6y ago
  Purely for themselves, or also for entering the cloud infrastructure market. In this day and age if you are big enough (Apple surely is) and happen to have superior server hardware it wouldn't really make sense to sell that hardware, you'd rather keep it and rent it out.
  - kube-system 6y ago
    The question is whether you can make a competitive cloud infrastructure service without x86. Imagine that would be a nonstarter for a lot of the market, at least now.
    - skohan 6y ago
      arm in the cloud is already a thing. A lot of companies have been moving towards server-less infrastructure in the past few years, and I can't imagine it makes any difference at all for a large set of use-cases whether you're executing your 50-line go lambdas on x86 or arm.
      - kube-system 6y ago
        The vast majority of the potential market is running somewhere between some and all of their stuff on x86 stuff in the cloud. Of course someone could launch an ARM-only cloud. They'd either be severely limiting their potential market, or they'd have to convince prospects to migrate to ARM. Certainly not impossible, but is it competitive?
        skohan 6y ago
        What migration? Most of the code I have run in the cloud in the past 5 years has been in the form of managed services. I don't really know or care if AWS is running my code on ARM or x86.
        kube-system 6y ago
        I think you are in the minority. EC2 is popular.
  - mortenjorck 6y ago
    An Apple alternative to AWS would be interesting, but it would probably be heavily geared toward iOS and Mac app backends, with little flexibility outside those use cases. The Xcode integration would probably be amazing, though.
- skohan 6y ago
  > Not to mention buying their own hardware will obviously save them. Maybe, maybe not. Apple doesn't currently produce servers, so it would probably take a lot of time and money for them to build out that capability to the point where it's break-even or better compared to just buying commodity hardware.
- _ph_ 6y ago
  Moving their own servers to Apple Silicon would save a lot of money, buth when buying as well as operating the machines. But once they do, resurrecting the Xserve should be a further source of income and raise the chip volume (which drives down costs). Imagine the margin on an Xserve powered by Apple Silicon vs. having to buy Xeon chips.
reaperducer 6y ago
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Xserve https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Xserve Apple’s Xserves were awesome. Not cheap. Only marginally competitive. But a joy to work with because of all the nice little details like a FireWire port on the front so you could boot it off of an iPod.
- skohan 6y ago
  Yeah I remember Xserve! But if anything it seems like it was evidence that Apple wasn't really able to "get" the server market, where hardware is a commodity and price and compatibility are basically the only concern. Not to say that couldn't change, especially if their own processors had a big advantage in price/performance, but there hasn't been a whole lot of evidence that they have what it takes to succeed in this space.
  - reaperducer 6y ago
    While most of your points are true, I will quibble with this: there hasn't been a whole lot of evidence that they have what it takes to succeed in this space. Does it matter? In 2006 and 2007 there were legions of pundits, columnists, and "experts" who said the same thing about Apple making a telephone. I wonder if there's a market for a server optimized for iOS builds. Cram as many Mx chips and possible into a rackable case with abundant cooling. Certainly it would be useful to Apple internally. But I wonder if there are enough iOS developers with the budget to make this workable.
    - skohan 6y ago
      Sure as I said, anything is possible, and that can change, but to be fair the iPhone is a consumer device, which was firmly within Apple's wheelhouse already when they were developing the first model. Do you really think there's a market for dedicated hardware for iOS build servers? I mean there is some market for this since CI vendors already do iOS builds, but it seems like a bit of a stretch to imagine there being enough demand for Apple to actually put the R&D and product development resources into making this a reality.
    - 6y ago

It would seem really out of character for Apple to make a move in the server space.

by skohan 6y ago

It would seem really out of character for Apple to make a move in the server space.

Or heck even just the general purpose chip space in general. Apple's current ARM offerings are strictly locked to their own hardware, and there's been no hints that they may move into the ARM-PC space selling general purpose chips and letting other vendors produce board. I'd expect to see that first before an Apple silicon powered server.

skohan 6y ago
Yeah Apple's never been a component company, they're all about vertical integration. Still it's hard to imagine if they actually do end up producing the best price/performance processors that these would be relegated to consumer products given the massive opportunity it would represent in the server space for cloud-based companies to bring down costs.

grecy 6y ago

We know they have tens of thousands of linux boxes running iCloud and the App Store and whatever else... if they can use their own ARM servers and reduce electricity use by 50%[1], you've gotta think they're looking serious at that, purely for themselves. Not to mention buying their own hardware will obviously save them. [1] https://twitter.com/ajassy/status/1318930486517927937?s=20 https://twitter.com/ajassy/status/1318930486517927937?s=20

usrusr 6y ago
Purely for themselves, or also for entering the cloud infrastructure market. In this day and age if you are big enough (Apple surely is) and happen to have superior server hardware it wouldn't really make sense to sell that hardware, you'd rather keep it and rent it out.
- kube-system 6y ago
  The question is whether you can make a competitive cloud infrastructure service without x86. Imagine that would be a nonstarter for a lot of the market, at least now.
  - skohan 6y ago
    arm in the cloud is already a thing. A lot of companies have been moving towards server-less infrastructure in the past few years, and I can't imagine it makes any difference at all for a large set of use-cases whether you're executing your 50-line go lambdas on x86 or arm.
    - kube-system 6y ago
      The vast majority of the potential market is running somewhere between some and all of their stuff on x86 stuff in the cloud. Of course someone could launch an ARM-only cloud. They'd either be severely limiting their potential market, or they'd have to convince prospects to migrate to ARM. Certainly not impossible, but is it competitive?
      - skohan 6y ago
        What migration? Most of the code I have run in the cloud in the past 5 years has been in the form of managed services. I don't really know or care if AWS is running my code on ARM or x86.
        kube-system 6y ago
        I think you are in the minority. EC2 is popular.
- mortenjorck 6y ago
  An Apple alternative to AWS would be interesting, but it would probably be heavily geared toward iOS and Mac app backends, with little flexibility outside those use cases. The Xcode integration would probably be amazing, though.
skohan 6y ago
> Not to mention buying their own hardware will obviously save them. Maybe, maybe not. Apple doesn't currently produce servers, so it would probably take a lot of time and money for them to build out that capability to the point where it's break-even or better compared to just buying commodity hardware.
_ph_ 6y ago
Moving their own servers to Apple Silicon would save a lot of money, buth when buying as well as operating the machines. But once they do, resurrecting the Xserve should be a further source of income and raise the chip volume (which drives down costs). Imagine the margin on an Xserve powered by Apple Silicon vs. having to buy Xeon chips.

reaperducer 6y ago

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Xserve https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Xserve Apple’s Xserves were awesome. Not cheap. Only marginally competitive. But a joy to work with because of all the nice little details like a FireWire port on the front so you could boot it off of an iPod.

skohan 6y ago
Yeah I remember Xserve! But if anything it seems like it was evidence that Apple wasn't really able to "get" the server market, where hardware is a commodity and price and compatibility are basically the only concern. Not to say that couldn't change, especially if their own processors had a big advantage in price/performance, but there hasn't been a whole lot of evidence that they have what it takes to succeed in this space.
- reaperducer 6y ago
  While most of your points are true, I will quibble with this: there hasn't been a whole lot of evidence that they have what it takes to succeed in this space. Does it matter? In 2006 and 2007 there were legions of pundits, columnists, and "experts" who said the same thing about Apple making a telephone. I wonder if there's a market for a server optimized for iOS builds. Cram as many Mx chips and possible into a rackable case with abundant cooling. Certainly it would be useful to Apple internally. But I wonder if there are enough iOS developers with the budget to make this workable.
  - skohan 6y ago
    Sure as I said, anything is possible, and that can change, but to be fair the iPhone is a consumer device, which was firmly within Apple's wheelhouse already when they were developing the first model. Do you really think there's a market for dedicated hardware for iOS build servers? I mean there is some market for this since CI vendors already do iOS builds, but it seems like a bit of a stretch to imagine there being enough demand for Apple to actually put the R&D and product development resources into making this a reality.
  - 6y ago