Apple attacks server market

Apple Computer`s relationship with chipmaker Intel is bearing more than desktop fruit, with the recent announcement of hardware additions and software upgrades to its servers.

This is according to Asian IT news resource IDM.Net, which report: "Apple`s new 64-bit dual-core Intel Xeon-based Xserve servers were [recently] announced at its World Wide Developers Conference in San Francisco".

The Xserve has twice the capacity and three times the bandwidth of the Xserve G5. Two eight-lane PCI Express expansion slots provide up to 2GBps of throughput per slot, explains the article. More details can be accessed here.

Analysts Merrill Lynch have this week reported that, while the hardware component has shrunk from 70% of a company`s IT budget 10 years ago to 30% today, server maintenance still takes up the lion`s share of hardware costs.

"It`s no surprise, then, to learn the big trends in the midrange market revolve around virtualisation, ease of management and a general blurring of the lines between midrange and low-end servers," writes ServerWatch.

The midrange server market, covering servers priced from $25 000 to $500 000, generated $13.2 billion in calendar year 2005, representing 26% of the worldwide server market, says Jean Bozman, an analyst with Merrill Lynch.

IBM plans to offer a high-availability System i server option in four-way to eight-way systems.

"That option so far has been available only in 16-way and 32-way systems," writes ChannelWeb.

George Gaylord, System i enterprise product manager at IBM, says the System i Capacity BackUp Edition previously was targeted at larger companies. But with more customers starting to take business continuity more seriously, demand has extended to the midmarket.