14 DAY TRIAL // The Enterprise Desktop Alliance carried out a survey to show how Apple Xserve owners are responding to its surprising announcement on November 5, 2010 that the Cupertino giant was ending the Xserve shipments on January 31, 2011.
Apple recently announced plans to discontinue the Xserve, noting that customers looking to upgrade, replace, or supplement existing Xserve systems with new Apple hardware have two server solutions to choose from - a new Mac Pro configuration dubbed Mac Pro Server, and the Mac mini with Snow Leopard Server.
According to the survey carried out by the Enterprise Desktop Alliance, 65% of respondents expect to stay with their current Xserves for at least the next couple of years.
Over one third will migrate to one of Apple’s recommended alternatives, survey results showed.
Both the Mac Pro and the Mac mini can run Apple’s Mac OS X Server operating system, the study notes.
Another third of respondents were unsure what solution they would choose for the services they currently run on Apple’s 1U rackmount server computers.
“A plurality of Xserve owners believes that the transition from the Xserve will not be more expensive than staying with their current system,” the Enterprise Desktop Alliance said.
According to the study, the most popular use of the Xserve - 90% of all classes of organizations - was as a file server.
“The Enterprise Desktop Alliance conducted this survey to provide an objective view of the services that organizations in each market segment operate on the Xserve today and how those organizations plan to deliver the services in the future,” said T. Reid Lewis, president of Group Logic, a founding member of the Enterprise Desktop Alliance.
“We want to help IT professionals make the best choices for their organizations arming them with an aggregate view of the plans of their peers.”
“We were surprised by the announcement, but it doesn’t affect our commitment to the Mac,” said Ross Kovelman, manager, Information Technology at The Hobart Group, a marketing firm for Healthcare organizations in managed markets.
“We expect to keep our Xserves as long as they are a viable solution and will look at Apple’s server offerings when the time comes.”
To carry out the survey, the Enterprise Desktop Alliance polled responses from 1,200 commercial, government and education users of Xserves.
From November 8 to November 12, subjects answered questions about their current uses of Xserve and their anticipated timing and plans for transitioning to other solutions.