The Cult of the Cool Mac: Made with 100% USDA real meat!

Steve Jobs' keynote at the Worldwide Developers Conference was focused on Jaguar, the next major revision to Max OS X, but for many of us in the tech-industry, there was another big announcement that amounts to a torturous teaser.

That's right, there was a hardware announcement hidden there amidst all the talk of such important new applications as iChat, an AOL Instant Messenger-compatible messenging client. What could possibly startle the techs and have jaded old Mac hands anxiously scanning the 'net for clues?

A new rackmount server.

Some of you are wondering whether that's exciting news. It is.

Apple has been making headway into the consumer market since the release of the iMac, but the company is losing marketshare in the business world. And that's where the money is. Until recently, Apple's response has been to disparage or ignore the problem. This has caused major headaches for Mac-techs who have to explain why the Mac is a better platform, even though Macs lack some features of Wintel boxes.

Some of those missing features are compatibility with network protocols, database, printing, mail, messaging, faxing and calendar applications which home and small business users aren't likely to encounter. Inevitably, those technologies depend on a company's server-platform. It also follows that corporate buyers will put Wintel boxes on desktops where PC servers reign.

OS X has opened the door to compatibility. It's not as easy as Apple says, but Linux and Windows-based server applications and client software are being ported to Mac OSX. There is promise that the Mac minority will not be orphans from their corporate networks.

Being able to read your mail is an important step, but it doesn't mean that many more companies are going to adopt Macs on their desktops. Mac servers have to be competitive with current Linux, Solaris or Windows-based machines. Which brings us to another missing feature: shape. Mac servers have to fit into the physical infrastructure, which means that they have to fit into a rack.

Sure, there are kits to adapt a desktop G4 to a rack. Marathon makes a rack-mount kit that attaches to a G4 case and uses 11 rack units. They even make a conversion kit that will squeeze your G4 into a 4 rack-unit case. (A rack unit is a measurement of the vertical space that a machine takes up). But Macs are already expensive, the ports and service-door are not conveniently placed for a rackmount and adding $200-600 dollars for the rackmount-kit onto the price of an already expensive G4 server makes it very unappealing.

PC servers can be found in 4, 2 or even 1 unit cases. They have redundant fans and power supplies and they have hot-swappable parts so that you don't have to shut down the server for minor maintenance-issues.

Macs offer no such conveniences.

On May 14th, Apple is going to announce the specifications of their new rackmount server. It's a big test of Apple's commitment to expand their market. If this new Mac isn't competitive with similarly-priced PC's then it may be seen to demonstrate Apple's continued arrogance and ignorance to an already biased group of purchasers.

On the other hand, if Apple rises to the occasion and makes that sweet sweet server so many of us have been hoping for, well then...

IT'S TIME TO TAKE OVER THE WORLD!!