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Apple (Nasdaq: AAPL) announced Tuesday that it has shipped the first configuration of its Xserve G5 1U form-factor servers. The other two configurations, including a special one that can be set up as nodes in a workgroup cluster, will ship in April, Alex Grossman, director of hardware storage and worldwide product marketing at Apple, told the E-Commerce Times.
The single 2.0-GHz G5 processor model, available immediately, retails for US$2,995 and comes with 512 MB of PC3200 ECC (error-correcting) RAM, an 80-GB drive, dual Gigabit Ethernet, FireWire and USB 2.0 connections, plus an unlimited client license of Mac Panther (OS 10.3) Server.
According to Grossman, a number of customers, mostly in Apple's core markets of education, small and medium businesses, creative industries, bioinformatics and the life sciences, already have placed orders for the single-processor model. Although Grossman declined to specify how many orders have been placed, he said the company is filling a lot of backorders that were placed when the Xserve G5 was announced at Macworld in January.
High-Performance Clusters
The upcoming cluster-optimized Xserve G5, which has the same configuration as the regular dual 2-GHz model but is designed to be linked into a cluster of up to 16 machines, has generated particular buzz in the scientific space, where performance is at a premium.
In particular, Apple has announced a special Workgroup Cluster for Bioinformatics -- an integrated all-in-one setup for the bioinformatics and life sciences spaces. Grossman described the configuration as perfect for scientists who need a cluster that can be easily set up and tweaked to fit their needs. The setup comes with iNquiry, a collection of 200 ready-to-use bioinformatics applications.
Illuminata senior analyst Gordon Haff told the E-Commerce Times that Apple has made inroads with its G5 Xserves, particularly in the scientific space, where high-performance clustering is a necessity.
"Apple has a speedy processor in its G5, which appeals to the type of user, generally speaking, whose need for processor performance is more pronounced than in commercial data centers," Haff said. "This group tends to be less conservative in its purchasing and more willing to try new things."
Keeping Fickle Buyers
In general, commercial data centers are less inclined to change their existing environments and vendor agreements than research centers, Haff said, which may be one reason why Apple is having more success 
in the research space.
However, members of the scientific community tend to be fickle buyers, which puts a great deal of pressure on Apple to keep up the performance of its server offerings, he added.
"One of the big things that brought Apple into this space and gained them presence is the same thing that could get them displaced," Haff noted. "It's a very competitive area [where] they have to keep proving themselves every month."
On the QT Stream
In addition to its Xserve announcements, Apple also publicized enhancements to its QuickTime Streaming Server software that offer, in conjunction with the G5 Xserve, a standards-based multimedia platform for 3G wireless networks.
Frank Casanova, senior director for QuickTime product marketing at Apple, told the E-Commerce Times that this combination gives the company an opportunity to market its hardware and software in the telecommunications industry. Already, 12 major telecom companies are in trials with QuickTime Streaming Server, which can perform 10,000 simultaneous AAC (Advanced Audio Codec) streams on a single Xserve G5.
According to Casanova, these companies appear thrilled with the performance and administrative capabilities this setup offers.
"We believe this solution is a low-cost, effective way to deliver multimedia streaming content to our techno-savvy customers," said Chan Kin Hung, head of mobile services at Singapore-based StarHub. "We look forward to continue working with Apple."
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