Apple Announces Mac Pro Server, Kills Xserve

Apple made a number of announcements Friday pertaining to its server market strategy, the most significant of which is that Xserve, its rack-mountable server solution, will be phased out beginning January 31, 2011.

At the same time, a new system was introduced to the Apple Store, called the Mac Pro Server. The server comes with an OS X Server unlimited license and is powered by an Intel 2.8GHz Quad-Core processor with 8GB of DDR3 memory. While the Mac Pro Server is on the lower end of the Mac Pro spectrum, it comes with substantially more horsepower than the Mac Mini Server.

Nevertheless, given its form factor, it’s likely that the Mac Mini Server will become the primary focus of Apple’s server strategy. Since the Mac Pro Server is boxed in a tower, it’s not conducive to the rack mounts found in many server environments.

Companies like Macessity stepped in long ago with rack mount trays for the Mac Mini. With Apple walking away from the Xserve [PDF], the question is whether it will begin offering its own rack mount for the Mac Mini Server.

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