Apple has been somewhat circumspect about its re-entry into the enterprise and IT markets. Realizing it is the new kid on the block, and that the competition in these markets are already very well established, Apple made it clear from the beginning that it was feeling its way around, but that it was also very serious about establishing a foothold in corporate server rooms. To that end Apple offered corporate buyers the innovative Xserve G4, OS X Sever, and then Xserve RAID, and many took notice. The amount of bang you got for the buck spent was hard to argue with, which put Apple in a completely new light for many CIOs.
Now Apple has upgraded Xserve, which now sports the G5 processor, making the bang to buck ratio even better, and OS X has also had many improvements, making it much more compatible with existing infrastructures. An article in Internetnews.com indicates that none of these improvements have gone unnoticed as Apple continues to quietly gain acceptance in enterprise server rooms across America and around the world. From the article:
While the Xserve has proved popular as a file and print server or as a Web server, Apple Director of Hardware Storage Alex Grossman told internetnews.com the G5 is gaining popularity on the edge of the network with content delivery providers and telecommunication companies.
"We’re being welcomed into these new areas," Grossman said. "What we’re seeing is the QuickTime streaming platform being used for a number for billing and routing calls. These companies are looking at their UNIX-based Sun and other vendor boxes and moving over to Macintosh OS X Panther."
Apple is quietly making gains in server rooms and data centers and not just because the art department needs a G5. Improvements to the company’s Xserve and Xserve RAID products as well as new networking software is allowing more companies to give Apple the eye.
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Apple said it has already inked deals with telco provider StarHub in Singapore and is in the middle of a dozen other trials in Asia. As previously reported, Apple added support for NTT DoCoMo’s (Quote, Chart) 3rd Generation Partnership Project (3GPP) to its code to make its streaming creation, delivery and playback platform more available over wireless networks. Japan-based KDDI has also signed on as a client partner with Apple.
The article also points out that Apple is making inroads into the scientific community by offering a workgroup cluster optimized for bioinformatics. There’s much more in the full article, which we recommend as an interesting read.
The Mac Observer Spin:
We wouldn’t call it an invasion, but Apple’s IT scouting mission has certainly been a success. Xserve G4, then Xserve G5 has been well received by the press, and the guys who hold the IT purse strings like what they hear when Apple is mentioned. That Apple is making such strides with telcos has got to be very gratifying, because, unlike the scientific community, telcos operate like any other IT business. If Apple can work well in a telco server room, it can do so in other corporate server rooms as well.
Not to make small any of the gains Apple has had in the scientific community either: Apple’s acceptance as egghead data crunchers is more than a good thing; it proves the versatility of Apple’s servers and OS X.
All in all, Apple has done a great job in introducing itself into a tough market. Now that it has a small foothold, let’s see if it can expand its presence. That may be tougher, but we think Apple is up to the challenge.