SAN FRANCISCO—Apple Computers CEO Steve Jobs didnt state it quite this directly at the Aug. 7 opening of the Apple Worldwide Developers Conference here at Moscone Center West, but this much is clear: Apple has seriously upgraded its 1U, rack-mountable Xserve server line, and its installed base of graphics arts, animation rendering and video production professionals is the target audience.
The fallout, the company hopes, will be that newcomers will hear about the Xserve and its RAID version and become part of the installed base themselves. Apple contends that this server, available in October, is twice as fast at I/O and will run cooler and use less power than its predecessor—an unusual market claim to make. The new server, at base, will cost exactly the same as the previous version—$2,999.
The latest Xserve is a quad Xeon, 64-bit server featuring Apples “Tiger” Mac OS X Server on two Core Duo Intel Xeon processors running up to 3.0GHz.
It features a new lights-out management system that enables administrators to control the hardware from a remote location through Apples Server Monitor software and Remote Desktop agent; new internal graphics that can drive up to a 23-inch cinema display as well as industry-standard VGA devices; and an ATI Radeon X1300 256MB PCI Express graphics card as a build-to-order option.
“This new upgrade is really about high-performance computing,” said IDCs Vice President of Global Enterprise Server Solutions Jean Bozman, in Mountain View, Calif. “So many Mac shops are doing high-end animation and graphics work now, and theyve been asking for more horsepower.”
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