Apple Computer is continuing to infuse the IT
community with its G5-based products, extending its tendrils into some sectors the company
previously did not have traction in.
Best known for its desktop systems, the Cupertino, Calif.-based computer
maker Tuesday began shipping single-processor configurations of its Xserve
G5 server.
The boxes retail for $2,999 and come with 512MB of PC3200 ECC
RAM, a single 80GB Apple Drive Module that can be expanded up to 750GB, dual
Gigabit Ethernet on-board, FireWire 800 and USB 2.0, and an unlimited client
license of Mac OS X Server.
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 of content delivery uses. 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.
For example, Apple senior director of QuickTime Frank Casanova said the
latest QuickTime Streaming Server softwareis perfect for Xserve G5 in that it can now
handle 10,000 radio streams reflected off of one new server, double the
number of streams previously available on the original Xserve G4.
“More than just content creation and consumer playback, QuickTime is
proving to be a valuable content delivery tool,” he said.
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 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 latest version of QuickTime offers extensive support for 3GPP,
including Advanced Audio Coding (AAC) and Adaptive Multi-Rate (AMR) audio,
MPEG-4 and H.263 video, 3G Text (TX3G) and native .3GP file format support.
Some of the interest from telcos, according to Grossman, stems from the fact that Apple
bundles so much software in the server edition of its operating system and
provides no additional licensing fees with a purchase of the hardware.
“If you do this with a Dell server and then use RealNetworks as your
content platform, you end up paying a lot,” he said.
Grossman said that traction is expected to grow when the company starts
shipping its two other standard Xserve G5 configurations sometime in
April — a $3,999 2GHz dual-processor version with an unlimited license
and a $2,999 2GHz “cluster-optimized” version with a 10-client license.
In addition to its new telco friends, Apple is wooing the scientific
community with its new Apple Workgroup Cluster for Bioinformatics. The
computing cluster software setup includes iNquiry, a 3rd-party
bioinformatics package from The BioTeam. Installation and maintenance have
also been greatly simplified so Apple said little or no IT support is
required.
One customer guaranteed to buy at least 1,100 G5 Xserve boxes is Virginia
Tech. The university said they will do a one for one swap of its current
configuration of PowerMac G5s for the new Xserve G5s.
The school runs the
“System X” high performance computing
cluster, which recently secured the No. 3 spot on the Top 500 list of
supercomputers. The $5.2 million system sits just behind NEC’s $300 million
Earth Simulator in Japan and the $215 million ASCI Q, an HP-based machine
housed at the Los Alamos National Laboratory in New Mexico.
