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No, they shouldn't. There's a reason Apple don't make Time Capsules any more. Servers are usually commodities, and Apple don't make commodities if they can rea

No, they shouldn't. There's a reason Apple don't make Time Capsules any more. Servers are usually commodities, and Apple don't make commodities if they can reasonably avoid it (anything they make that's even close to a commodity still, at least, can be turned into a fashion accessory, like the aluminum keyboards and stuff). Commodity suppliers get put into bidding wars, and operate on razor-thin margins. Apple have basically opened the market for ARM servers by producing a workstation to go with them. Amazon is probably feeling pretty vindicated for Gravitron right now. Everybody else will catch up with them over the next five years or so, I'm sure.

dingaling 6y ago
And to invert that point, data center operators only buy commodities[1]. They won't be interested in a single-source option with invariable pricing. [1] Excepting those big enough to build their own
- dangus 6y ago
  Change selling chips and servers to selling cloud computing. I don’t think Apple will do it considering how far behind they are, but I wouldn’t be surprised if they start an AWS competitor using Apple Silicon. Cloud computing is never 100% a commodity because there’s always business logic to sell. Sure, S3 and EC2 are by this point commodities, but cloud products like Babelfish for Aurora PostgreSQL are not. Businesses are plenty interested in single source cloud computing, there are tons of shops that basically can’t leave AWS without a monumental effort.
ChuckNorris89 6y ago
>Apple don't make commodities ARM chips are also commodities nowadays. I lost count of how many companies make them. Yet Apple chose to make their own. Charging circuitry chips are also commodities and Apple bought the division of Dialog semiconductors making such chips to have in house knowledge. Now Apple bought the modem division of Intel so we're gonna see GSM modems from them in the future.
- smcgaw 6y ago
  Apple doesn't sell commodities might be more accurate.
- mschuster91 6y ago
  > Now Apple bought the modem division of Intel so we're gonna see GSM modems from them in the future. Not in any non-Apple device, that is. The rest of the world will be stuck with with Qualcomm, Broadcom and some crap from Mediatek.
eloff 6y ago
Intel's server market is their most profitable segment. It's a high margin business, the opposite of a commodity.
- valuearb 6y ago
  It was.
- AnthonyMouse 6y ago
  Intel's server market is full of customers with proprietary x86_64 binaries that can't easily be ported to other architectures, and until recently had very little competition in that market because AMD's pre-Zen server processors were uncompetitive. Throwing in to that market with an ARM processor would limit you to portable software, putting you into competition with not only Intel and AMD but also Amazon and potentially Qualcomm and others. Which could actually hurt Apple if it gives ARM competitors a wider market for their processors and therefore more resources to spend on development that carries down to PCs and mobiles.
naravara 6y ago
> There's a reason Apple don't make Time Capsules any more. Servers are usually commodities, and Apple don't make commodities if they can reasonably avoid it (anything they make that's even close to a commodity still, at least, can be turned into a fashion accessory, like the aluminum keyboards and stuff). Also, they can sell you a monthly subscription to iCloud storage instead. I'd rather be in that line of business than selling an overpriced and under-featured NAS. Anyone who cares that much is probably technically savvy enough to prefer a proper NAS anyway.

dingaling 6y ago

And to invert that point, data center operators only buy commodities[1]. They won't be interested in a single-source option with invariable pricing. [1] Excepting those big enough to build their own

dangus 6y ago
Change selling chips and servers to selling cloud computing. I don’t think Apple will do it considering how far behind they are, but I wouldn’t be surprised if they start an AWS competitor using Apple Silicon. Cloud computing is never 100% a commodity because there’s always business logic to sell. Sure, S3 and EC2 are by this point commodities, but cloud products like Babelfish for Aurora PostgreSQL are not. Businesses are plenty interested in single source cloud computing, there are tons of shops that basically can’t leave AWS without a monumental effort.

ChuckNorris89 6y ago

>Apple don't make commodities ARM chips are also commodities nowadays. I lost count of how many companies make them. Yet Apple chose to make their own. Charging circuitry chips are also commodities and Apple bought the division of Dialog semiconductors making such chips to have in house knowledge. Now Apple bought the modem division of Intel so we're gonna see GSM modems from them in the future.

smcgaw 6y ago
Apple doesn't sell commodities might be more accurate.
mschuster91 6y ago
> Now Apple bought the modem division of Intel so we're gonna see GSM modems from them in the future. Not in any non-Apple device, that is. The rest of the world will be stuck with with Qualcomm, Broadcom and some crap from Mediatek.

eloff 6y ago

Intel's server market is their most profitable segment. It's a high margin business, the opposite of a commodity.

valuearb 6y ago
It was.
AnthonyMouse 6y ago
Intel's server market is full of customers with proprietary x86_64 binaries that can't easily be ported to other architectures, and until recently had very little competition in that market because AMD's pre-Zen server processors were uncompetitive. Throwing in to that market with an ARM processor would limit you to portable software, putting you into competition with not only Intel and AMD but also Amazon and potentially Qualcomm and others. Which could actually hurt Apple if it gives ARM competitors a wider market for their processors and therefore more resources to spend on development that carries down to PCs and mobiles.

naravara 6y ago

> There's a reason Apple don't make Time Capsules any more. Servers are usually commodities, and Apple don't make commodities if they can reasonably avoid it (anything they make that's even close to a commodity still, at least, can be turned into a fashion accessory, like the aluminum keyboards and stuff). Also, they can sell you a monthly subscription to iCloud storage instead. I'd rather be in that line of business than selling an overpriced and under-featured NAS. Anyone who cares that much is probably technically savvy enough to prefer a proper NAS anyway.