Apple ® section

Wake up, Apple

I knew this was coming a while back, but it's official today: VMware Announces Agreements to Embed VMware ESX 3i Hypervisor Across Broad Lines of Servers from Dell, Fujitsu-Siemens, HP and IBM

Apple needs to pull its head out of the sand on this. Virtualization is the most important technology right now. Microsoft blew it (but they never really had a chance anyway because virtualization hurts them as much or more than it helps them) and VMware has made the first strike, but it's not too late for Apple to ink their own deal. Maybe they don't want to work with VMware? Fine: Parallels is just as good - maybe a bit more work because they don't actually have a competitive product, so maybe they and Apple would need to develop one together.. . The important thing is to be able to offer fully virtualized systems.

Apple would have a BIG advantage here as they are the ONLY platform that can legally run OS X. As they control the hardware, their virtual server could be even tighter than VMware's already tight ESX product..

Sigh.. do they really not see this?

4 comments

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Wed Feb 27 14:39:32 2008:   yungchin
http://yungchin.wordpress.com

Hi,

actually... I don't see it either (but note I'm not a server admin or such).
For casual use of virtualisation (like running Windows) there's Parallels. For professional use - I'm thinking of high-uptime demanding situations where you can move OS instances between machines, that sort of stuff - I can't imagine anyone using Mac OS, or?



Wed Feb 27 14:44:06 2008:   TonyLawrence


Well, that's the point: you wouldn't consider a Mac for that use, but that's because Apple is ignoring that market.



Wed Feb 27 15:25:47 2008:   yungchin
http://yungchin.wordpress.com

True, I guess I'm just turning your point around :)
It's not that they don't see it, but it's not an interesting market for them.

They'd be up against a lot of established players (you named them) who really have good products to offer. Apple's support infrastructure is based around the Apple Stores - one can't compare that to the kind of infrastructure shops like IBM or Red Hat are backed by. And then: the people they'd be selling to want more than good looks and an intuitive user interface. Apple's marketing people (which I would guess make up for more than half the company's value) know how to sell to people who call themselves techies (like me ;)) - but will they manage to sell to people who actually are techies?

(by the way, for some reason I need to submit several times to get a comment posted... the times it doesn't work I just see a blank screen)



Wed Feb 27 15:31:03 2008:   TonyLawrence


I've had several people complain about that blank screen but I can't (so far) replicate it, sorry.

Apple is already selling to "real techies" and their server product is gaining ground also.

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