Apple will not be left behind – so it has decided. The Xserve, launched end July in Singapore, claims to be one of the highest performing, most efficient and cost-effective servers in the market yet.
Apple has always prided itself for its ease-of-use technologies, and the new Xserve purports to be no different. Apple says it has taken into consideration concerns of users from the bottomline and designed a server from ground-up. The result: a server that not only supports multi-platform connectivity, but also allows for the remote management and monitoring of services from anywhere on the network – all within a secure environment.
With a price tag of US$2,284, the Mac Xserve supports file and print servers for Windows, Mac and Unix users, multi-media, Web and mail services.
Well-known in the media and publishing industries, Apple intends to broaden is target market and position itself within the biotech and education sectors as well. Already, the Xserve supports the well-known biotech application “BLAST”.
As Asia pumps in billions of dollars to reap the benefits of a rapidly expanding biotech/life sciences industry, Apple too is jumping on the band wagon, catering to the needs of this sector which will depend much on technology to support its growth.
Albert Lam, managing director of Apple – South Asia says, “With leading biotech applications such as BLAST already running on OSX, Xserve with its storage and computation capabilities will provide an excellent cost-effective platform to support the needs of the biotech sector.”
According to Lam, Apple already has a strong market presence in the bioscience industry in both the US and Europe.
As a new player in the server market, Apple lacks the recognition of other providers such as Sun Microsystems, HP and IBM. However, it remains undaunted. Instead, says Lam, it has teamed up with some established resellers of Sun, IBM and HP to drive the Xserve business.
In Singapore, Apple has partnered with Frontline Technologies to be its master reseller, who has also revealed that they intend to target beyond the media and entertainment industries to reach the broadband and Internet service providers as well as the education and research sectors. Since its introduction in May, Apple claims to have received orders exceeding 4,000 Xserve servers.
Xserve is also available in Malaysia, Thailand, Philippines and India.
