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Trillion dolar company =/= hardware giant. On the server,datacenter and large scale CPU processing scenes you don't see much Apple hardware. But now it is start

by jbirer 6y ago

Trillion dolar company =/= hardware giant. On the server,datacenter and large scale CPU processing scenes you don't see much Apple hardware. But now it is starting to look like a feasible option. We might see Mac Pro's in the datacenter rooms soon.

tonyedgecombe 6y ago
I don't think they will ever be interested in the datacenter again. Making consumer products is in their DNA, servers isn't.
- cmrdporcupine 6y ago
  Yep. The XServe was a great product. It just made no financial sense, and with the long tail of the server market being pretty much AWS/GCP/Azure, it makes even less sense for Apple now than then.
Frost1x 6y ago
Maybe were talking about enterprise datacenter giant more than hardware giant? I'm curious what those distributions are since I've worked very little in enterprise scale datacenters, just utilized them with non-Apple hardware. Apple develops and manufacturers a lot of hardware (one of the few positive things I'll plug them for). I would definitely consider them a generic "hardware giant" in that context. Much of this hardware are phones, watches, laptops, and peripherals. I know their server/datacenter market is traditionally pretty slim but don't know what it typically looks like. I know AWS recently announced Mac EC2 instances[1]. The fact EC2 has been so dominant and Apple hardware in EC2 is just now arriving gives much merit that they're not in that much demand in datacenters. I work in research and have only encountered a handful of instances where projects interfaced with Apple hardware (especially in a datacenter) but there's no reason that couldn't shift given Apple's capital and talent pool that already exists. [1] https://aws.amazon.com/blogs/aws/new-use-mac-instances-to-build-test-macos-ios-ipados-tvos-and-watchos-apps/ https://aws.amazon.com/blogs/aws/new-use-mac-instances-to-bu...
cmrdporcupine 6y ago
Apple has taken several kicks at that can over the last couple decades and each time it's been a flop. Not because the hardware wasn't good, but because it's just not the kind of market that makes sense for them and their business model. They're not interested in low-margin commodity bulk product. They're a luxury brand and they make money off of selling personal lifestyle computers. Often good quality, and, yes, the M1 looks fantastic (literally just bought my wife a new M1 MacBook Air) but this is a company that doesn't even really sell a commodity desktop machine. I cannot see them going head to head against SuperMicro. Maybe, _maybe_, they'd license M1 out, but I doubt it.

by jbirer 6y ago

tonyedgecombe 6y ago

I don't think they will ever be interested in the datacenter again. Making consumer products is in their DNA, servers isn't.

cmrdporcupine 6y ago
Yep. The XServe was a great product. It just made no financial sense, and with the long tail of the server market being pretty much AWS/GCP/Azure, it makes even less sense for Apple now than then.

Frost1x 6y ago

Maybe were talking about enterprise datacenter giant more than hardware giant? I'm curious what those distributions are since I've worked very little in enterprise scale datacenters, just utilized them with non-Apple hardware. Apple develops and manufacturers a lot of hardware (one of the few positive things I'll plug them for). I would definitely consider them a generic "hardware giant" in that context. Much of this hardware are phones, watches, laptops, and peripherals. I know their server/datacenter market is traditionally pretty slim but don't know what it typically looks like. I know AWS recently announced Mac EC2 instances[1]. The fact EC2 has been so dominant and Apple hardware in EC2 is just now arriving gives much merit that they're not in that much demand in datacenters. I work in research and have only encountered a handful of instances where projects interfaced with Apple hardware (especially in a datacenter) but there's no reason that couldn't shift given Apple's capital and talent pool that already exists. [1] https://aws.amazon.com/blogs/aws/new-use-mac-instances-to-build-test-macos-ios-ipados-tvos-and-watchos-apps/ https://aws.amazon.com/blogs/aws/new-use-mac-instances-to-bu...

cmrdporcupine 6y ago

Apple has taken several kicks at that can over the last couple decades and each time it's been a flop. Not because the hardware wasn't good, but because it's just not the kind of market that makes sense for them and their business model. They're not interested in low-margin commodity bulk product. They're a luxury brand and they make money off of selling personal lifestyle computers. Often good quality, and, yes, the M1 looks fantastic (literally just bought my wife a new M1 MacBook Air) but this is a company that doesn't even really sell a commodity desktop machine. I cannot see them going head to head against SuperMicro. Maybe, _maybe_, they'd license M1 out, but I doubt it.